Historical Injustice and Democratic Transition in Eastern Asia and Northern Europe: Ghosts at the Table of Democracy

HISTORICAL INJUSTICE AND DEMOCRATIC TRANSITION IN EASTERN ASIA AND NORTHERN EUROPE The twentieth century was pockmarked with the scars of conflict. Across the globe, dozens of societies were transformed by political processes involving intense violence – including massacre, murder, repression and detention. In the process, certain ethnic groups and social classes have been excluded from political power in their own societies. The global wave of democratization that took place towards the end of the century brought a welcome end to repression in many parts of the world, but the effects of past atrocity linger like ghosts at the table of democracy. Past injustices embitter societies and distort their structures so that the process of establishing and running a democracy carries an extra burden. This book examines societies at various stages of dealing with the memory of the past – from China, Mongolia, Indonesia and the Baltic states where bitter memories of death and persecution still intrude, to Finland where the Civil War of 1918 has finally been accepted as a distant national tragedy. Kenneth Christie has taught and conducted research at universities in the USA, Singapore, South Africa and Norway. He specializes in Comparative Politics and his most recent book is The South African Truth Commission (2000). He is currently Associate Professor of Political Science at Zayed University in the United Arab Emirates. Robert Cribb teaches Southeast Asian History at the University of Queensland in Brisbane, Australia. He is editor of The Indonesian Killings of 1965–1966: Studies from Java and Bali (1990) and author of A Historical Atlas of Indonesia (2000).

HISTORICAL INJUSTICE AND DEMOCRATIC TRANSITION IN EASTERN ASIA AND NORTHERN EUROPE Ghosts at the table of democracy

Edited by Kenneth Christie and Robert Cribb

London and New York

Dedicated to our children Jacqueline Hope Christie James and David Cribb First published 2002 by RoutledgeCurzon 11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by RoutledgeCurzon 29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001 This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2003. RoutledgeCurzon is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group © 2002 editorial matter and selection, Kenneth Christie and Robert Cribb; individual chapters, the contributors All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data A catalog record for this book has been requested ISBN 0-203-22035-8 Master e-book ISBN

ISBN 0-203-27532-2 (Adobe eReader Format) ISBN 0-7007-1599-1 (Print Edition)

CONTENTS

Notes on contributors 1

vii

Introduction: remembering, forgetting and historical injustice

1

ROBERT CRIBB AND KENNETH CHRISTIE

2

Victim or victimizer: the reconstruction of the Cultural Revolution through personal stories

13

JIN QIU

3

The aftermath of the Cultural Revolution in Inner Mongolia

24

WU DI

4

Forgetting what it was to remember the Indonesian killings of 1965–6

38

ROBERT GOODFELLOW

5

Remembering and forgetting at ‘Lubang Buaya’: the ‘coup’ of 1965 in contemporary Indonesian historical perception and public commemoration

57

KLAUS H. SCHREINER

6

Causes and consequences of historical amnesia: the annexation of the Baltic states in post-Soviet Russian popular history and political memory

79

DAVID MENDELOFF

7

Coming to terms with the past: memories of displacement and resistance in the Baltic states DOVILE BUDRYTE

v

118

CONTENTS

8 Transmitted experience: individual testimonies and collective memories of the Nanjing Atrocity

139

DAQING YANG

9 Thirty thousand bullets: remembering political repression in Mongolia

155

CHRISTOPHER KAPLONSKI

10 Coping with the Civil War of 1918 in twenty-first century Finland

169

RISTO ALAPURO

11 Civil War victims and the ways of mourning in Finland in 1918

184

ULLA-MAIJA PELTONEN

12 Remembering the Finnish Civil War: confronting a harrowing past

198

MANDY LEHTO

Index

210

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NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS

Risto Alapuro, Professor of Sociology at the University of Helsinki, Finland, has published, notably, State and Revolution in Finland (1988) and three other books, in Finnish, about conflicts in twentieth-century Finland. He is currently working on social networks among Russians and Estonians. Dovile Budryte is an Assistant Professor in International Studies at Brenau University in Georgia. Her areas of expertise include democratization, historical memory and reconciliation and gender perspectives on international relations. She started her work on memory and reconciliation in the Baltic states while she was a Fellow at Europa University Viadrina in 1998–9, and continued to work on this project as a Visiting Scholar at Aalborg University in Denmark (Fall 1999) and as a Fellow at Central European University in Hungary (January 2000). Her doctoral dissertation is entitled ‘Community Building in Ethnically Restructured States: The Baltics’ (Old Dominion University, August 2000). In 2000–1, she was a Carnegie Council on Ethics and International Affairs Fellow. She has published on the role of historical memory in the Baltic states and women’s issues in East Central Europe. Kenneth Christie has taught and conducted research at universities in the USA, Singapore, South Africa and Norway. He specializes in Comparative Politics and is the author of three books, the most recent being the South African Truth Commission (London: Macmillan 2000). He has co-authored and edited several others. He is currently Associate Professor of Political Science at Zayed University in the United Arab Emirates. Robert Cribb teaches Southeast Asian History at the University of Queensland in Brisbane, Australia. He is editor of The Indonesian Killings of 1965–1966: Studies from Java and Bali (1990) and author of Gangsters and Revolutionaries: the Jakarta People’s Militia and the Indonesian Revolution 1945–1949 (1991) and a Historical Atlas of Indonesia (2000). Robert Goodfellow teaches at universities in both Australia and Indonesia. He is the author or co-author of a number of books on Culture and Society in Indonesia, the People’s Republic of China and Australia. He has worked as a features writer for the Jakarta Post since 1993. Jin Qiu is an Assistant Professor of East Asian History at Old Dominion University where she teaches Modern Chinese and Japanese History. She earned her PhD in History from the University of Hawaii, supported by a four-year fellowship from the East–West Center. Her book, The Culture of Power: The Lin Biao Incident in the Cultural Revolution was published in 1999. She is currently researching the relationship between personal memory, collective memory and official history in forming contemporary Chinese history.

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NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS

Christopher Kaplonski is a Research Associate at the Mongolia and Inner Asia Studies Unit, University of Cambridge, and the Department of Anthropology, Rutgers University. His PhD was from Rutgers University, and the dissertation examined the relationship of history, identity and politics in contemporary Mongolia. He is currently studying the legacy of socialist-era political repression in Mongolia. He is editor of Twentieth Century Mongolia (1999). Mandy Lehto recently completed her PhD at Churchill College, Cambridge in History. Her dissertation was entitled ‘The Unfinished Civil War and the Politics of Remembrance in Finland 1918–1928’. David Mendeloff is Research Scholar at the Center for International Studies, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts, and visiting Assistant Professor of Politics and International Relations at Drake University, Des Moines, Iowa. He is author, most recently, of ‘Ideas Have Consequences: American Beliefs on the Causes of War,’ (with Stephen Van Evera) in the Oxford Companion to American Military History, edited by John Whiteclay Chambers, II (Oxford University Press, 2000) and ‘Explaining the Persistence of Nationalist Mythmaking in Post-Soviet Russian History Education,’ in The Teaching of History in Contemporary Russia, edited by Vera Kaplan (Tel Aviv: The Cummings Center for Russian and East European Studies, 1999). He holds a PhD in Political Science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Ulla-Maija Peltonen is a Doctor of Philosophy and researcher of Folkloristics at Helsinki University. She has studied working class culture, historical narrative tradition and recollected narration. Her works include Naisia turvasäilössä (Female Political Prisoners in Finland 1930–1944) 1989 and Punakapinan muistot (Memories of the Civil War, 1996). She is co-author of To Work, to Life, or to Death: Studies in Working-Class Lore (1996). She is currently researching the relationship between official and unofficial memory of the Finnish Civil War. Klaus H. Schreiner read Modern History, Political Sciences and Comparative Religion at the universities of Göttingen, Freiburg, Hamburg and Denpasar. He received his PhD from the University of Hamburg for a thesis on the cultural and political background of hero veneration in modern Indonesia. Before teaching Southeast Asian Studies at the J. W. Goethe University of Frankfurt/M. (1995–2000), he worked as a researcher for the German Asia Foundation in Essen. Schreiner specializes in Modern Indonesian History and Historiography. Currently he is head of the Brussels-based European Liaison Office of the International NGO Forum on Indonesian Development. Wu Di is a Research Fellow at the China Film Art Research Center. He is author of 1966–1976 China Film: Model Peking Opera (Beijing: China Film Public House, 2000, in Chinese), The History of China: Classical Literature (Beijing: China Film Public House, 1994), and The Cultural Revolution in Inner Mongolia (Extracts from an Unpublished History), edited and translated by Michael Schoenhals (Stockholm: Center for Pacific Asia Studies at Stockholm University, 1993). Daqing Yang is an Assistant Professor of History and International Affairs at the George Washington University, where he teaches modern Japanese history. Educated in Nanjing, Hawaii and Chicago, he received his PhD from Harvard University in 1996 under Akira Iriye. His recent publications include a review article, ‘Convergence or Divergence: Recent Historical Writings on the Rape of Nanjing,’ American Historical Review (June 1999). His book, Technology of Empire, which examines the role of telecommunications networks in Japan’s empire-building efforts, will be published by the Harvard University Asia Center.

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1 INTRODUCTION Remembering, forgetting and historical injustice Robert Cribb and Kenneth Christie

The twentieth century which has just come to an end was marked by the emergence of a grand narrative in global politics which has come to be called ‘dealing with the past’. The expression itself, ‘dealing with the past’, is unsatisfactorily vague: ‘the past’ is difficult to define and ‘dealing’ with it leaves open a huge range of possibilities, from amnesia to revenge-seeking. Nonetheless, the term has come to refer in particular to a process that puts to rest the social and international antagonisms created by historical wrongs. The process implies that somehow a line is drawn between the past and the present, so that debts of honour, blood and money need not be carried over from one generation to another in a way that distorts relations between social, national or ethnic groups. The aim is that former enemies – and their heirs – should be able to collaborate in building a civil order at every level of the global community, whatever injustices may have been committed in the past. Before the twentieth century, sustaining the memory of historical injustice often seemed to be prudent rather than problematic. States and peoples which remembered the identity of their traditional enemies were better placed to keep those enemies at a distance. A deep-seated national memory of invasion and occupation by China undoubtedly helped the Vietnamese prepare to resist the continual threat from the north. Stalin’s preparations to resist Nazi Germany were clearly endorsed by historical memories of the Napoleonic and Wilhelmine invasions. Within state borders, too, the memory of past injustices could reinforce acquiescence in the existing power relations. Only in the twentieth century did the idea begin to develop that war and repression might eventually be eliminated from the repertoire of state power, with the consequence, or perhaps the prerequisite, that the attitudes of fear, hatred and resentment which feed warfare could also be eliminated. Dealing with the past, we argue, has a strongly instrumentalist element – the past is to be mastered so that it will not blight the future – but it also contains a powerful moral tendency. To ‘deal with’ the past is something very different from simply recognizing the historical reality of victory and defeat, conquest and annihilation, supremacy and subordination. It involves an attempt to rectify past injustice, some 1

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effort to provide recompense, at least in symbolic, and perhaps also in material, terms to those who have suffered and to their heirs by providing new judgement of the morality of acts in the past. Although the notion of dealing with the past has deep philosophical roots, its practical application can be dated to the war crimes trials held in Nuremberg, Tokyo and elsewhere in the aftermath of the Second World War. The Allies’ management of victory was influenced by a widespread perception that the victory over Germany in 1918 had been mishandled: that in demanding savage reparations and imposing difficult economic conditions on Germany, the Treaty of Versailles had in fact contributed significantly to the circumstances which led to the Second World War. The emergence of the Cold War immediately after the Second World War only increased the need for some kind of reconciliation between the Allies on the one hand and Germany and Japan on the other. In some cases, the trials were little more than ‘victor’s justice’, while in their broad aim they were an attempt to lay down the rules of behaviour for states and their leaders, which would make the world a more civil place in the future. A significant element in the construction of the trials, however, was the idea that they would limit the moral culpability of the losing side by targeting for trial and punishment only those specifically responsible for war crimes. In this way, it was hoped, what might otherwise be seen as the general guilt of the Germans and the Japanese would not damage international politics in the way that it had done after the First World War. Of course the war crimes trials did not fully achieve this aim. First, it was clear that many guilty individuals escaped trial and punishment. An essential element in the logic of the settlement therefore was that these individuals should be pursued wherever and whenever they could be traced. Until the establishment of the international tribunals to try those accused of crimes against humanity in Rwanda and Bosnia, the pursuit of war criminals took place entirely within the framework of national laws, which were sometimes specially extended to claim jurisdiction over events in other countries. The most celebrated case was Israel’s kidnapping and trial of Adolf Eichmann in 1961 but recently this element has also been reflected in a somewhat frantic pursuit of the last, ageing war criminals. In 1988, Australia amended its 1945 War Crimes Act to allow it to prosecute those suspected of crimes against humanity in Nazi-occupied eastern Europe; Britain passed a similar act in 1991, extending its jurisdiction to deal with crimes committed outside the United Kingdom and has since then taken some action to deal with these problems. In April 1999, Anthony Sawoniuk who had been responsible for many Jewish deaths in Belarus in the 1940s, was finally brought to trial after living in Britain for more than fifty years; he was seventy-eight years old when he was finally brought to justice for his role in Holocaust atrocities.1 Second, clearing the slate has seemed to demand some kind of act of contrition from collectivities, especially nations as represented by states. Thus Germany’s acknowledgement of at least residual guilt for the Holocaust has been widely regarded mature and constructive. Japan went further than Germany in constitutionally renouncing warfare as a tool of state policy (though this renunciation 2

INTRODUCTION

was imposed by MacArthur, rather than chosen by the Japanese authorities themselves), but Japan’s reluctance to make the same admission of guilt as Germany had done – on the grounds that Japan itself was a victim and that its political agenda during the Second World War was honourable – has been widely seen as an obstacle to reconciliation in East and Southeast Asia.2 Still more problematic than this issue in the West is the one over the United States’ involvement in Southeast Asia. The Vietnam War, for instance, more than any other American overseas engagement, still raises tangled and bitter issues of guilt and responsibility. The suggestion that an apology by the United States to the Vietnamese people might be in order is anathema to the vast majority of the American population.3 The settling of accounts within political units has emerged as an issue even more recently. In 1945, colonialism provided the most obtrusive set of grievances for a large part of the world, but within a decade it was clear that decolonization was taking place on a massive scale. Grievances which had been, in a sense, domestic to the British, French, Dutch or American colonial empires became international ones. There was, moreover, a pervasive confidence in a process called ‘nation-building’, in which modernization in the broad sense was expected to transcend ancient antagonisms. The sense of human progress which was still powerful in the world in the early 1960s gave the hope that the hostilities of the past would be left behind, without any special measures being needed to assuage them. In the event, the latter process fell far short of these hopes. Instead, the second half of the twentieth century was marked by growing waves of violence. States faced revolutions, insurrections, riots and guerrilla warfare, and responded brutally, not only against their challengers but typically against helpless citizenries. In armed conflicts since the end of the Second World War, over 90 per cent of the casualties have been civilians, an estimated 22 million people.4 These experiences have inflicted deep and abiding scars on ordinary people. Even early in the century, before some of the worst cases of genocide had taken place, one author could argue that ‘the curse or privilege to be the most devastating or most bloody war century belongs to the Twentieth; in one quarter century it imposed upon the population a ‘blood tribute’ far greater than that imposed by any of the whole centuries combined.’5 Paradoxically, on the other hand, the twentieth century was also one of democratization. In 1900 there were only a handful of democratic states in the world, and the democratic credentials of most of these were compromised by limited franchise and other restrictions. By the end of the century, the public could choose their own governments in relatively free elections in most of the countries of Europe, the Americas and Oceania, in large areas of Asia (the major exceptions being China and Pakistan), and in some parts of Africa. Many of these elections left something or much to be desired in terms of the levels of public participation, the integrity of voting procedures, the role of money politics or the degree of real choice available to the electorate, but the contrast with the beginning of the 3

ROBERT CRIBB AND KENNETH CHRISTIE

century was striking. At the same time, moreover, states were enmeshed as never before in an architecture of international cooperation and regulation. The freedom of states to manoeuvre was not simply governed, as before, by their relationship to one or more superpowers, but by international prescription and regulation on issues ranging from trade policy and environment to human rights, refugees and gender. The relationship between violence and democratization is complex. On the one hand, much violence has been caused by elites resisting democratic demands from below. On the other, democratization, at least in its broad sense, nourishes the populism that feeds on chauvinism, prejudice and hatred. Some scholars have argued that regimes founded on violence can nonetheless provide a stable framework for the development of democracy, because the stability they provide entrenches a consensus on the limits of political change and on the rules of the political game.6 In addition, the emergence of analytical history and of the social sciences during the twentieth century has led to a growing consensus that violent events in the past may have a disfiguring effect on present democracies. This consensus arose partly by extrapolation from the scientific psychology of the nineteenth century, and its belief that events buried deep in the past could have a concealed but distorting effect on life long after the event. It also rose partly from concern with the dynamics of democracy: analysts of democratic institutions quickly became aware that democracy was difficult to sustain in political units riven by ancient hatreds. Out of these two considerations has arisen a burgeoning academic and practical interest in strategies for dealing with historical injustice. There are two salient problems: First, how can the sense of distrust and moral imbalance which arises from past crimes be set at nought, so that it becomes possible to establish a civil relationship between social groups who are divided by historical grievance? Second, and still more difficult, what special compensation should be offered in a democracy – a system in which numbers have especial significance – to those groups whose numbers have been diminished by past atrocities? The problem of the missing became acute during the twentieth century because so many people disappeared for unnatural reasons, as one observer has written succinctly: The twentieth century has been the century of the missing and disappeared. In part inquiries in to the past such as we are dealing with here have the task of seeing the unseeable, revealing the concealed and finding and remembering the vanished. There is also another important reason however for finding the ‘missing’; it is to display a sign that they were once alive and lived. They have lost their place in the order of things, in the social and historical fabric. There are personal memories of them but no external evidence or sign to embody these memories. Who can show that these people once lived, had values and causes, and thus what their deaths mean?7 4

INTRODUCTION

In the broad historical perspective, we understand remarkably little and can explain even less of the consequences of atrocity. Historians can often enough identify the economic and political consequences of the destruction of cities and the devastation of countryside, and occasionally can identify that the extinction of a political possibility was brought about by an act of inhumanity. But the emotional burden which survivors carry from their experience of political trauma has remained largely unexplored, mainly because documents rarely exist to give us any insight into this terrain; interview work in this field is possible only for relatively recent events, and then it is enormously time-consuming, spiritually troubling and often fraught with political difficulties. Investigating the memory of terrible events is also plagued more than other forms of oral history by worries about reliability. The mind is not a tape-recorder, and the remembering of events can transform memory itself, perhaps distilling its essence, or nudging it towards a different essence. Historical injustice is a particularly difficult moral and practical issue. First, it implies that some current realities are illegitimate because they are a consequence of atrocities in the past. Second, it implies that the relationship between the heirs of the perpetrators and the heirs of the victims is not governed by general rules of human relations but by specific obligations, such as atonement on one side and forgiveness on the other. The pronouncement that the realities of today are illegitimate because they depend on past crimes is problematic for several reasons. First, it can be difficult to apply the moral standards of today to social and cultural circumstances of the past when they were alien, unknown or even contested. Second, yesterday’s victims were often themselves the perpetrators of atrocity the day before: who owns the Middle East if we consistently apply the doctrine of prior possession? And third, the extent to which the present condition of any group can be credited to or blamed on historical events becomes increasingly uncertain as those events recede into the past.8 The proposition that the heirs of perpetrators have a special obligation to the heirs of victims is also problematic. What set of principles can possibly govern such obligations? If the original injustice cannot be reversed, can the obligation ever be exhausted? It is also difficult to identify precisely who constitutes an heir: are the descendants of African slaves in the United States, or the descendants of early twentieth century Asian or European immigrants, heirs in a moral sense to the soldiers and settlers who slaughtered native Americans in earlier centuries? In historical terms, the answer to injustice has usually been revenge. The troops of Chinggis Khan poured molten silver into the eyes of the governor of Otral in central Asia in revenge for his execution of the members of a Mongol diplomatic mission. English royalists dug up the body of Oliver Cromwell after the monarchy was restored in England in 1660 and hanged it at Tyburn to register their loathing of his execution of Charles I. Germany accepted the French surrender in 1940 in the same railway carriage where German generals had signed their capitulation at the end of the First World War. Revenge, however, was for victors only, and merely stored up a new set of bitter memories to be avenged when the opportunity arose. 5

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The distinctive feature of the world’s attempts to cope with historical injustice since the Second World War has been the search for tools other than revenge as a remedy for historical injustice. Three elements have been prominent in this search. First, there has been an attempt to establish universal principles of human rights, to enshrine them in international law and to impose them by means of international tribunals. As mentioned, the war crimes trials which followed the Second World War were far from perfect, but they attempted to impose universal standards of human behaviour on a set of serious offenders. After a long gap, this effort has been continued with the creation of international tribunals to judge crimes against humanity in Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia, and may eventually reach a new level of activism with the creation of an International Criminal Court. Although there are still enormous difficulties in applying such measures to large states, the trend towards the international imposition of human rights law plays a role comparable to that of domestic criminal laws in taking the punishment of criminals out of the hands of vengeful victims and putting it in the hands of the state. This approach can clearly have a significant effect when the international community moves quickly to apprehend and try suspect criminals, but because it depends on identifying the guilt of individuals it can do little to address more ancient historical injustices. Second, a strong belief emerged that a sincere and complete expression of contrition by the descendants of the perpetrators can play a major role in closing the book on past injustice. Apologies have been offered rather frequently during the past decade, especially by the leaders of Western countries including the Pope and Bill Clinton, but there are serious problems over who is entitled to apologize for whom, over the problem of whether an apology’s sincerity is relevant, or indeed whether sincerity can be judged, and over whether even a sincere apology truly erases past sins. Nonetheless, it is clear that failure to apologize is often a major obstacle to reconciliation. Japan’s relations with China and Korea in particular are bedevilled by its reluctance to make an unqualified apology for atrocities committed in these countries during its long wars in the region. Finally, a widespread belief has developed that establishing the historical truth about past atrocities is an essential step towards consigning the memory of those atrocities to the past. Because of the growing public and international recognition of basic human rights, the concealment of atrocity was particularly common during the twentieth century. The power of human rights arguments was paradoxically one of the reasons for the emergence of death squads as a tool of repressive regimes in many parts of the world.9 Under these circumstances, a society’s release from uncertainty or from deliberate ignorance can be a crucial step in allowing it to put a painful past behind it. Truth Commissions for instance have emerged as one of the more important tools for establishing a publicly acceptable account of historical truth and some twenty such commissions have been established around the world since 1974, in states as diverse as Argentina, Chile, Uruguay, Bolivia, El Salvador, Guatemala, South Africa, Zimbabwe, Malawi, Uganda, Rwanda, Chad, Ethiopia, Germany and the Philippines. Many of these commissions, however, 6

INTRODUCTION

have been vulnerable to the accusation that they are intended to uncover only part of the truth and may in fact be a device used by new regimes to create new, but equally false historical orthodoxies. Still more serious is an accusation that truth commissions reopen old wounds and thereby intensify enmities and antagonisms rather than soothing and reconciling them. The dual nature of the state as an oppressive institution and protector of the social order and social values emerges clearly in the state sponsorship of historical investigation. On the one hand, mastery of the past is a tool of authoritarianism and dictatorship. The power to decide what will be remembered and forgotten is a potent tool of authority, almost on a par with the power to define crime and the power to wield violence. On the other hand, a state in transition needs to maintain political stability and to provide for national unity. It may therefore seek to uphold basic social values and reaffirm the rule of law by punishing perpetrators of heinous crimes under the old regime. Yet pursuing past crimes may encourage political violence, perhaps even civil war, which can weaken an already vulnerable democratic system. Many new governments are also constrained by virtue of inheriting the civil service and security apparatus of the former regime. Reconciliation presents a strong argument against prosecution in this instance. International law and the political constraints which form part of it allow for an affirmative obligation on the part of states to investigate and punish gross violations of human rights. Some have argued this means that amnesty provisions are strictly illegal under provisions of international law; while others argue for discretion on the part of individual states. Common to all these views is the notion that transitional governments are obliged to establish an accounting of their past history. Connerton, however, has also warned us that the control of society’s memory conditions the hierarchy of power. The way that collective memory is stored is not simply a technical, neutral matter but one that bears directly on the legitimation of power relations and its meaning. The question of control is a crucial political issue, in that control of the media and the control of the archives, are powerful instruments in remembering and forgetting.10 Images of the past then commonly legitimate the present social order through shared memory. Memory in this sense is material; it counts; it serves a purpose. Similarly, Ernest Renan argued that nation-building demands that history be forgotten in order for the past to be re-made in the image of the present. Karl Marx, too, summed up the power of the past with characteristic vigour: Men make their own history but not of their own free will; not under circumstances they themselves have chosen but under the given and inherited circumstances with which they are directly confronted. The tradition of the dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the minds of the living.11 Humankind’s experiment with applying truth and reconciliation to the problems of historical violence and injustice is perhaps too new for definitive conclusions. 7

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In this volume, however, we have sought to push the debate further by examining these issues in a number of countries in eastern Asia and northern Europe. Juxtaposing these two regions has been an experiment, as the two are seldom compared as equals, but we felt that scholars working in both regions might learn something useful from the comparison. In the event, the pattern that emerges is more complex. There is no clear Asia–Europe juxtaposition, but rather a set of five countries or regions – Finland, the Baltic States, Mongolia, China and Indonesia – which generate a multitude of different comparisons. In all these cases, unlike Rwanda, Kosovo or Cambodia, the perpetrators of violence remained in power for long after the worst of the violence, preventing any immediate effort to seek justice or reconciliation. In all five regions there has been some transition to democracy – thoroughgoing in the case of Finland, shaky in Indonesia, and limited to the level of local government in China. In Finland and Indonesia, the victors and perpetrators of historical atrocity were on the right, in the others they were on the left. In Finland, the killings came in the context of civil war and foreign threat. In Indonesia they developed in the context of intense internal political conflict between rival forces and a change of regime from Sukarno to Suharto. In China, the Baltic states and Mongolia, the killings were the work of established regimes. The studies in this volume complement and are distinct from those discussed in a recent and stimulating volume, The Politics of Memory: Transitional Justice in Democratizing Societies.12 In Spain and Portugal, southern and central America, South Africa and eastern Europe though to varying degrees, the repressive past was dealt with by means of trials, purges, amnesties and truth commissions. In no case did people imagine that these formal processes of transitional justice might fully resolve the legacies of the past, but in each case they were seen as playing a major role in enabling such a resolution. The cases in this book, by contrast, are largely beyond legal remedy. The perpetrators of violence in early twentieth-century Finland are no longer alive to account for their deeds before a court or a Truth Commission. The perpetrators of atrocity in the Baltic states and Nanjing are now elderly and mostly in another country. And the perpetrators of the Cultural Revolution in China and of the massacres in Indonesia are still important powerholders in their own society. Any reckoning with them will be a long time coming. These traumatic political and social dislocations took place well before terms like reconciliation and transitional justice had entered the vocabulary of international affairs. In each case, when the violence came to an end there was no systematic effort to resolve its legacies quickly, no attempt to learn from the experience of other countries how it might be possible to close the door on the past. In short, in contrast to Spain and Portugal, southern and central America, South Africa and eastern Europe; Finland, the Baltic States, Mongolia, China and Indonesia are cases where there has been no attempt at implementing transitional justice, while the attempts which followed the Rape of Nanjing were limited and undeveloped. We have structured this book in reverse chronological order, the Chinese and Indonesian traumas which are still within relatively recent memory coming first, 8

INTRODUCTION

then the Baltic States, Nanjing and Mongolia whose histories were blighted by war and Stalinism in the middle decades of the century, then finally Finland, whose bloody civil war took place in the twentieth century’s second decade. Finland’s experience, now perhaps closest to resolution by virtue of the passage of time, is the most thoroughly discussed, partly also because it is so little known in the rest of the world. In most of the chapters we find clear reasons why people wish to remember the violence of the past. First, they remember it to be better able to prevent similar events from happening again. The Baltic states fear that Russia will be back, the Mongolians fear that Sinification will end in the further destruction of Mongolian culture and identity, and we all fear that authoritarianism and totalitarianism may return to plague humankind. We want to be able to recognize that small cloud on the horizon, which warns that the enemy horsemen are coming, the lapses in tolerance and freedom which may start us off on the slippery path towards authoritarianism. We want to stop these things now so that we do not have to fight another world war to destroy them at some stage in the future. This instrumentalist view of learning from the past, of course, also has a dark side: oppressors use the memory of past atrocity as a way of disciplining their subjects. Suharto’s New Order used the memory of the 1965–6 killings to warn off political opposition, and the fear that such violence might recur was a serious brake on opposition to Suharto during his final months in 1997–8. Similarly, the Chinese government recalls the memory of the Tiananmen massacre to keep political order in a time of massive economic and social change. Alongside the instrumentalist reason for remembering, however, more psychological reasons also operate. There is an intense distress connected with the knowledge that precious things – people and culture – are gone forever. To grow up without a parent or grandparent is to be poorer for it. There is a deep sorrow in not being able to pass to one’s children the language of one’s ancestors or the songs of one’s own childhood, in not being able to show them the buildings or landscapes that give identity to a person, a family, a people. Of course, loss is also wrenching at an individual level. The sorrow of losing a child to meningitis or a lover to a car accident is no less acute than if the child or lover was slaughtered in some political conflict, and we have to be wary of creating a kind of aristocracy of suffering, in which the misery of those bereaved by political conflict is elevated to a higher level of nobility than that of those who lose their loved ones in more prosaic circumstances. Nonetheless, loss seems worse en masse and when other humans inflict it, partly because it challenges our notion of human morality, partly because it distorts the political order which follows, and partly because it reflects the state of humanity. In some of the chapters we can see indications that victimhood has become fashionable. On reflection, however, it becomes clear that we are dealing with something more profound than fashion. The importance of asserting victimhood may be closely connected to the development of democratic practice in world affairs. However much we may accept such principles of democracy as majority rule, it is hard to escape the feeling that there is something wrong if we sanction 9

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majorities which have been created by slaughter. If we want to draw a line between us (and someone else) and the past, then we have some obligation to bring everyone up to that line on a more or less equal basis. It seems likely that the idea of restitution and compensation has more to do with overcoming the crippling political consequences of loss than with straightforward justice. After all, the crimes which are illustrated here are so terrible and far-reaching that comprehensive justice in terms of straightforward criminal law would lay (or would have laid) an unmanageable burden of punishment on all the societies we have considered. Rather than seeking justice, it seems to us, we are searching for devices which will free victims from that crippling effect of loss and thus enable civil society to emerge. This process applies both within states and in the international order. It is no surprise that these issues are most acute in societies which are undergoing a transition to democratic institutionalization, and between states whose standing in international affairs has changed recently or is contentious (Russia and the Baltics, Japan and China). Collectively, the chapters are clear in identifying three available approaches for achieving this process of equalization, namely truth, contrition and compensation. They are less clear, however, on precisely why these should be the best steps. Truth means establishing the facts of the conflict, generally in as detailed terms as possible, often to the point of identifying each individual victim and his or her fate. It is needed so that there will be a solid empirical base from which to refute, possible later (or current) attempts at denial, and perhaps that some kind of an upper limit can be put on the sense of loss. Establishing the truth is made difficult, of course, by practical obstacles such as the death of victims and the reluctance of survivors to talk, especially in the case of rape. Documentary evidence tends to be rare and offers at best a partial picture, while oral evidence – sometimes the only available source – has many problems of reliability. These obstacles can lead to a relativist view of multiple truths, which tends to undermine the whole process of searching for truth. Second, the effort of collecting information and revealing it to a public audience requires large resources, generally those of the state. This means that the process of truth finding is never simply dispassionate but is always a result of political negotiation over what is and is not to be included. We can read the significance of widening Finland’s research project on war victims to cover the whole of 1914–22, rather than just the civil war, and the controversy over Lithuania’s decision to investigate Nazi and Soviet crimes in the same framework. It is also clear that in China and Indonesia, and to a lesser extent Mongolia, investigation of the past is hampered by the unwillingness of the authorities to cooperate in allowing or supporting research. We also realized that because victimhood is a form of political capital, it can allow for incentives to lodge unwarranted claims, such as the claim by some Chinese Indonesians that they, not the communists, were the main victims in 1965–6, or to turn claims on and off in response to political circumstances, as the Chinese government has tended to do with the Nanjing Massacre. There is also the risk that the investigation of old crimes will refresh and renew antagonisms. 10

INTRODUCTION

Contrition by the perpetrators may consist simply of apology or can take the form of trial and punishment of a symbolic number of perpetrators. Sincere apology seems to be rather effective, but it often seems to come late or with qualifications which reduce its power. And identifying who should deliver the apology, in other words, who the perpetrators actually were and who their present heirs are, is generally very difficult in the kind of complex political and ideological conflicts which we are discussing. In the case of Mongolia, the purges could be blamed on Choibalsan and Tsedenbal alone or on the Soviet Union, or on the MAHN. Trials of perpetrators were set up by the Nuremberg and Tokyo tribunals as an internationally recognized tool of achieving justice, but the probability that they can target only a few symbolic figures makes them vulnerable to a cynical process of scapegoating. The chapters of Jin Qiu and Wu Di suggested that the insincere scapegoating was an especial problem in the PRC, but it is also clearly a problem in Indonesia, where there is no clear public understanding of where responsibility lies for the excesses of the New Order regime. Finally, some form of compensation seems to be needed to give former victims the practical means to participate equally in a democratic domestic or international order. For ethnic groups, a separate state or at least special land rights would seem to be the most straightforward compensation. Establishing compensation at the right level in these and other cases is enormously difficult. Compensation cannot be seen as restitution, and it should not even approach this. In many cases it is derisory, as with a young Mongolian, described by Wu Di, who was paid 400 yuan in compensation for the deaths of each of his parents. Yet, compensation can also go too far: to assign a permanent second-class status to the Russians of the Baltic only provides the ground for a new set of injustices. We know that time will eventually heal all these conflicts, but we also know that we do not want to wait for centuries.13 Here we discuss possible solutions in the humble knowledge that we do not know what will work, but that the effort is necessary if any progress is to be made and lessons are to be learned. This volume is based on a selection of papers from the conference, ‘Remembering and forgetting: the political and social aftermath of intense conflict in Eastern Asia and northern Europe’, held in Lund, Sweden, and organized jointly by the Centre for East and southeast Asian Studies of Lund University and the Nordic Institute of Asian Studies in Copenhagen, Denmark. The editors would like to thank Professor Michael Schoenhals and Ms Lisa A. Reynolds for their work in hosting the conference, and to acknowledge the contribution of other participants at the conference for the stimulating discussions which provided the information for this book.

Notes 1 See Gillian Triggs, ‘Australia’s War Crimes Trials: A Moral Necessity or Legal Minefield?’, Melbourne University Law Review, 16(2) (1987), 382–402; Tsvi Fleischer, ‘Beyond Konrad Kalejs: Australia’s Ongoing War Crimes Problem’, Review, 25(2) (2000), 8–11, ‘Nazi’s Hired Killer Who Lay Low for 50 Years’, The Independent, 2 (1999), 8.

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02 See Ian Buruma, The Wages of Guilt: Memories of War in Germany and Japan (London: Vintage, 1995). 03 Broader issues of conflicting historical perceptions in Asia are usefully discussed in Gerrit W. Gong, ed., Remembering and Forgetting: The Legacy of War and Peace in East Asia (Washington DC: Center for Strategic and International Studies, 1996). 04 See Kumar Rupesinghe (with Sanam Naraghi Anderlini), Civil Wars, Civil Peace: An Introduction to Conflict Resolution (London: Pluto Press, 1998), p. 24. We mention this figure as an indicative one only; the counting of casualties is enormously difficult and is commonly subject to massive over- and under-statement. 05 See Pitirim A. Sorokin, Social and Cultural Dynamics, Vol. 3: Fluctuations of Social Relationships, War and Revolution (New York: Bedminster Press, 1962), p. 342. 06 See M. G. Burton and J. Higley, ‘Elite Settlement’, American Sociological Review, 52(3) (1987), 295–307. 07 Derek Summerfield, ‘Raising the Dead: War Reparation and the Politics of Memory’, British Medical Journal, 311 (1995), 495–7. See also Andrew O’Hagan, The Missing (London: Picador, 1995), p. 134. 08 George Sher, ‘Ancient Wrongs and Modern Rights’, Philosophy and Public Affairs, 10(1) (Winter 1981), 3–17, argues a philosophical case for a fairly steady diminution over time in the extent to which past wrongs can have a legitimate moral influence on present political and social relations. His main argument is that with the passage of time the malign effect of the original wrong is diluted by a host of other historical factors, eventually reaching a point at which its direct and identifiable effect is negligible. 09 See Bruce B. Campbell and Arthur D. Brenner, eds, Death Squads in Global Perspective: Murder with Deniability (New York: St Martin’s Press, 2000). 10 See Paul Connerton, How Societies Remember (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), pp. 1–4. 11 See Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, Selected Works: The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Napoleon (Moscow: Progress Press, 1968), p. 95. 12 Alexandra Barahona de Brito, Carmen Gonzaléz-Enríquez and Palomar Aguilar, eds, The Politics of Memory: Transitional Justice in Democratizing Societies (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001). The volume also includes a valuable bibliography on the issue of transitional justice. 13 Barrington Moore Jr, ‘How Ethnic Enmities End’, in Jocelyne Couture, Kai Nielsen and Michel Seymour, eds, Rethinking Nationalism (Calgary: University of Alberta Press, 1996), pp. 109–33, offers a sobering long-term perspective on the sometimes brutal techniques which can bring enmities to an end.

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2 VICTIM OR VICTIMIZER The reconstruction of the Cultural Revolution through personal stories Jin Qiu

The Chinese Cultural Revolution remains one of the most devastating experiences that the Chinese people have experienced in their modern history. Even the Chinese government had to acknowledge, five years after Mao died, that the Cultural Revolution was ‘responsible for the most severe setback and the heaviest losses suffered by the party, the state, and the people since the founding of the People’s Republic’.1 Several decades later, however, the Cultural Revolution still remains a subject that needs much study. One of the major reasons for this is that the Chinese government still imposes heavy censorship on research about the Cultural Revolution in China. Scholars who insist on researching on topics related to the Cultural Revolution are subject to punishment, including dismissal from their jobs or imprisonment. A lack of access to archival materials and limited funding also form a major obstacle to the study of this topic. Even if some Chinese scholars managed to finish their much troubled studies, there is little chance for them to publish in China if their viewpoints do not follow the party line. Neither is doing research on the Cultural Revolution an easy task for scholars outside China. The foremost problem is the difficulty in finding reliable materials. It was not until the mid-1970s that important works on the subject, mostly by political scientists, were published, largely based on the Red Guard publications available in the West. Among them are Hong Yung Lee’s study of the Politics of the Cultural Revolution, Lowell Dittmer’s study of Liu Shaoqi, and Roderick McFarqhuar’s three-volume work about the origins of the Cultural Revolution.2 These studies capture the dynamics of the central power struggles and mass movements and remain the most important works on the subject. Thus, the political dimensions of the Cultural Revolution have been the focal point of most scholarly works. Few political scientists engaged in institutional studies of the Cultural Revolution, however, continue to research this topic and many have moved on to study more recent political and economic developments in China, such as the economic reform which 13

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started in the early 1980s and continued after 1991, the democratic movement centred on the Tiananmen massacre, and the issue of political culture. Fortunately, however, the Cultural Revolution has caught the attention of scholars in other fields, including history, sociology, anthropology, literature and language, communications, and cultural studies. Books published in 1980s and 1990s offer a wide range of perspectives. Some examine the Cultural Revolution as a social movement, focusing on violence and Red Guards activities, while others concentrate on the social, intellectual, psychological, or cultural impact of the Cultural Revolution on the country and the people as a whole.3 Meriting special discussion are works by those who themselves experienced or witnessed the Cultural Revolution. These works fall into two general categories. The first consists of accounts of personal experiences from people of different social groups, such as former Red Guards, government officials, intellectuals, or those with so-called ‘bad’ class origin. The second category includes more sophisticated scholarly studies, based on personal experiences, secondary materials, and social science theory. The best works in this category include those by Wang Shaoguang, Lin Jing, and Huang Shaorong.4 These works serve, in Jeffrey M. Wasserstrom’s words, to bridge ‘the gap that once existed between works based on first-hand experience’ and ‘those relying exclusively upon secondary materials’.5 Owing to limited space, I will focus my discussion on the works in the first category, the personal accounts of the Cultural Revolution, which generally provide us with stories of extreme personal trauma suffered during the Cultural Revolution. What I am interested in, however, is finding out how the Cultural Revolution is reconstructed through personal experiences, and how these personal experiences, in turn, influence individual views as well as public memory of the Cultural Revolution, and also, how we evaluate these personal accounts as primary sources in the study of the Cultural Revolution. While reading these memoirs, I was struck most by the constant revelation of enormous personal suffering and frustration as the result of living under a totalitarian regime. Everyone appears to be a victim of the Cultural Revolution. They are all either victims of Mao’s purges, whether directly ‘guilty’ of some crime or indirectly ‘guilty’ by association, or victims of Mao’s misconducted policies, such as sending the educated youth to the countryside, or victims of communist propaganda imposed on the individual. This trend is most obvious in the literature that appeared immediately after the Cultural Revolution, which is known as ‘scar literature’. The same trend continued in most of the Cultural Revolution literature, especially those published in the West, such as autobiographies by Liang Heng, Gao Yuan, Nien Cheng, Zhang Rong, Ma Bo, Niu Niu, Zhai Zhenhua, and Rae Yang.6 The theme of victim also prevails in personal stories collected by other writers.7 To Western audiences, as well as many Chinese, such revelations are overwhelmingly shocking. As one Western scholar puts it: As I read these personal stories, each with its own losses and hurts to report, its own endurance and courage and resourcefulness to chronicle, 14

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I realized what totalitarianism can come to mean in the life of a nation, a people: the loss of all respect for the personal dignity of the individual; the constant hectoring through state-owned radio and television; the use of rumor, innuendo, gossip, and lies of all sorts as means of scaring people, destroying their sense of their worth, their rights as human beings; and finally, the hounding of those people, the arrests and arraignments, the threats and beatings and denunciations and jailings.8 Revelations of personal suffering and victimization by a totalitarian regime, however, probably should not remain the central theme of Cultural Revolution studies. A personal tragedy, even in the most obvious case, is usually far more complicated than what meets the eye. In many cases it goes far beyond the external suppression of the individual by a totalitarian regime. We have known ever since Shakespeare constructed his tragic figures, such as Hamlet and Macbeth, that internal as well as external conditions mingle together to bring the most tragic results. Probably not everyone who suffered in the Cultural Revolution deserves to be a hero ‘of resiliency, of endurance, of extraordinary courage demonstrated against the worst odds imaginable’.9 Indeed, the Cultural Revolution was a chaotic period during which nearly all the universal norms and values of human decency were ignored or violated. Few Chinese remained untouched by this ‘revolution that touched people’s very souls’, and millions of Chinese suffered physically or psychologically. One bitter irony of the Cultural Revolution, however, is that it was not conducted solely by Mao and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). It was a nationwide movement in which almost all Chinese were involved. Without millions of the Chinese who voluntarily answered to Mao’s call, the Cultural Revolution might have remained a strictly ‘cultural’ revolution, that is, a movement aimed at controlling people’s minds, or cleansing the Party and government organizations. In fact, Mao and his Party constantly launched such political movements after the foundation of the People’s Republic. From the ‘Three-anti’ (sanfan) and the ‘Five-anti’ (wufan) movements in early 1950s to the Socialist Educational Movement, or the ‘Fourcleansing’ (siqing) movement in 1964, Mao and the CCP used political movements aimed at indoctrinating people with Maoist theories. In comparison with these previous mass movements, however, the Cultural Revolution was different due to the voluntary participation by millions of Chinese. This was why the Cultural Revolution developed into nationwide chaos for over three years, the consequences of which were more destructive than those of any previous campaign and still linger today. From an individual point of view, it might be true that most participants in the Cultural Revolution became its victims as well. But before we readily accept this assumption of victimization, we need to remember the fact that millions of Chinese voluntarily answered Mao’s call to criticize, torture, or even kill each other for no obvious reason other than to demonstrate their commitment to the Marxist/Maoist theory of class struggle. This very fact indicates that Chinese 15

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experiences in the Cultural Revolution under Mao were different from the tragic experiences of Jews in the hands of Hitler, or even from China’s own experiences at the hands of the Japanese during the Second World War. In the case of Hitler’s massacre, the victimizers are relatively clear – Hitler and his followers who carried out his anti-Semitic policies and massacred millions of Jews simply because of their ethnicity. In the case of Cultural Revolution, however, the line between victimizers and victims is far from clear. It is true that for several decades after the establishment of the PRC, Mao and the Communist Party manipulated people’s thinking by using all kinds of coercive means. It is also true that Mao took advantage of thousands of innocent young people by improperly redirecting their thinking and behaviour. However, what Mao counted on during the Cultural Revolution was not the power of the state institutions, which he actually intended to destroy, but the power of the proletarian class, which meant whoever belonged to the working class and ‘five red categories’ would be endowed with the power to abuse and harass those outside the revolutionary classes. It was a dictatorship by mass terror. In this sense, Mao’s China also differs from Stalin’s Russia where the system depended heavily on the secret police and the Gulag. Mao was a true believer of ‘the mass line’ and the power of people. During the Cultural Revolution, he deliberately manoeuvred masses against masses, and ‘five red categories’ against ‘five black categories’. As a result of the ambiguities in defining these social categories, the line between victimizers and victims was blurred. Moreover, the roles of victimizers and victims were constantly shifting according to political situations during the Cultural Revolution. It was not uncommon for yesterday’s victimizer to become today’s victim, or vice versa. For example, the Red Guards who were initially terrorizing victimizers of others became victims themselves after Mao sent them to the countryside to receive re-education after 1968. What Anne Thurston found out during her interviews of victims of the Cultural Revolution is revealing: Interviewing victims of China’s Cultural Revolution for Enemies of the People, influenced no doubt by the Biblical Book of Job, I began with the presumption not only of innocence but the belief that suffering was somehow ennobling. Some whom I interviewed were genuinely innocent. But in the course of the research, I realized that people sometimes became victims because they had once been persecutors and that victims of one stage became persecutors in the next. The majority of the people I interviewed had lied, confessed to crimes they had never committed, betrayed families, colleagues and friends. Only one of my nearly fifty interviewees had emerged from the experience of victimization as innocent at the end of the Cultural Revolution as when it began. Only one never confessed to crimes she did not commit, did not lie, did not betray family, colleagues or friends.10

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The problem of ambiguity between victimizers and victims becomes more evident when examining individual cases. Mao, for example, did not give direct orders to execute Liu Shaoqi, Peng Dehuai, or He Long. All the them died at the hands of ‘the Central Investigation Groups for Special Cases’ (Zhongyang zhuanan zu). Some may argue that Mao did not need to issue such orders, because in these years a slightest indication of disapproval by Mao was enough to destroy anyone’s career. But where did Mao’s power over his opponents come from? In the case of the deaths of hundreds of lower ranking officials and many other people who were tortured by the Red Guards, Mao was probably not the sole person responsible. If Mao is exclusively responsible for the abuses of the Cultural Revolution, it is because he single-handedly removed most mechanisms of social control, allowing all kinds of social evils and human indecency to come into full play, which, in turn, pushed Mao’s policy further to the extreme. To make this point clearer, let us examine the case of the death of Bian Chongyun, the former principal of the Girls School attached to Beijing Normal University (Shida nufuzhong). Before Bian was beaten to death by the students known as the Red Guards, she wrote a letter to the party organization, asking for help. In her letter, she expressed her experiences at the hands of the Red Guards as follows: I was forced to wear a high hat, lower my head (eventually, bending over at a ninety degree angle) and kneel on the ground. I was beaten and kicked. My hands were tied behind my back. They hit me with a wooden rifle that was used for militia training. My mouth was filled with dirt. They spat in my face.11 Of course, nobody came to her rescue, as in many other similar cases in the Cultural Revolution. The Red Guards at the school continued to torture her until she died one day after nearly six hours of such torment. Bian was only one among many casualties of Red Guards’ violence. In the first several months of the Revolution, thousands of high school and college students, who organized themselves as the Red Guards, swarmed into the streets, bursting into people’s homes, beating and torturing innocent people. The Red Guards threw the entire country into chaos, or in Mao’s own words, provoked an ‘overall civil war’. China teetered on the edge of the collapse as the radicals, from workers to peasants, joined the violence fomented by the Red Guards. The disorder continued for three years before the central government, with the help of the military, restored national order. For the next seven years, during the second phase of the Cultural Revolution, the government engaged in efforts to repair the damage done by the Red Guards and radicals in the first three years. Recently, scholars have become more aware of the overall human and material cost of the Red Guard movement. Between August and September 1966, for example, the Red Guards ransacked more than 33,000 households in Beijing alone, and expelled 85,000 residents from the city. They also destroyed five thousand of the

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seven thousand historic sites and relics in Beijing, sent more than three million tons of books, including two million copies of classic, ancient, and rare books, to paper mills for destruction.12 No institution remained untouched by the irrational assaults of rebellious youngsters. Every school, from primary grades to universities, closed for the new semester. In fact, most universities and colleges remained closed until 1972. It is a difficult, but probably not unfair, question, to ask who should be held responsible for the death of Bian Chongyun and many others. Mao? The Party? Or the Red Guards who actually tortured them? What turned these innocent young teenagers into de facto murderers? One of the most vivid descriptions of how one might feel in participating in the torture of others is provided by a former Red Guard who describes the transformation she experienced while beating a victim: When I first saw a Red Guard remove her canvas belt to beat her victim and saw his clothes tear and blood appear on his skin, I was afraid. I was not the most bloodthirsty person in the world. I was even afraid to watch wars or fighting in movies. I felt unworthy. If by beating these people from the five categories I would prove my political consciousness and my valor in the class struggle, I would do it. Thus, when that Red Guard left off, I removed my belt and learned to beat like her. In the beginning I dared not look at the person under my feet. I had to stiffen myself mentally to continue. I kept thinking, ‘These are class enemies, bad people. Before Liberation they lived a decadent life, sucking the blood of the working people and treating our revolutionary martyrs brutally. Even today, to regain their lost wealth and status, they seek the return of the evil old society. They’re only getting what they deserve. I shouldn’t feel sorry for them. In class struggle, either you die or I do.’ … After a few beatings, I no longer needed to rehearse the rationale behind them. My heart hardened and I became used to the blood. I waved my belt like an automaton and whipped with an empty mind. Once I was out of their homes, I wiped off the buckle of my belt and fastened it outside my jacket again as if nothing had happened.13 Similar examples can also be found in other autobiographies. Two episodes in Ma Bo’s autobiography, Blood Red Sunset, are equally revealing.14 In the book, Ma Bo first tells us about his initial experiences as a Red Guard sent to the Mongolian prairie to continue the revolutionary mission. He and the others broke into the home of a former herd owner, Gonggele, who had been labelled a ‘bad guy’ during the Cultural Revolution, trashing his property and harassing the family members. After they turned the yurt (tent) into a ‘disaster zone’ and carried their spoils outside, Gonggele’s dog charged and barked furiously at them. Infuriated with the dog, Ma Bo picked up a hoe and raised it over his head when Gonggele rushed over, threw himself over the dog, and begged Ma Bo to spare 18

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the dog’s life. Instead of conceding Gonggele’s plea, Ma Bo ‘grabbed him by the scruff of his neck’ and ‘jerked him off his knees like a baby chick, then dropkicked him head first to the ground’.15 After a fierce confrontation between Ma’s group and Gonggele’s family and friends, Ma and his friends not only killed the dog, but almost slew his owner as well. As the story continues, Ma tells us in the next chapter about his deep sorrow over the loss of his own dog. When he learned that his dog, Ingush, was killed because it had killed several sheep, he ran to the spot and dug out the body. ‘Sticky blood from a gash in his chest stained my hand … . The blood soiling my jacket seemed to seep into my heart.’16 The book concludes, however, without Ma putting these two incidents together to draw any kind of conclusion about his role in the repression. As a contemporary of Zhai Zhenhua and Ma Bo who also suffered personal trauma in the Cultural Revolution, I came away from these works, pondering about the question: how could this prolonged human tragedy of the Cultural Revolution happen in China? Mao and his communist regime bear the ultimate responsibility for the human tragedies that many Chinese experienced. But what else do the stories of the Cultural Revolution reveal to us? When Ma Bo mourned over the loss of his dog and complained of mistreatment during his unfair custody later, did he ever recall Gonggele, whom Ma himself cruelly beat earlier because of Gonggele’s attempt to protect his dog? Did he ever feel regret over bursting into Gonggele’s yurt and forcing everyone in the household out of their home just because Gonggele was a former herdowner? If Ma suffered unfairly and feels resentful about his treatment, how about Gonggele and his family who were mistreated by Ma Bo and his fellow Red Guards? We should respect Ma Bo and Zhai Zhenhua for their honest descriptions of their past experiences. It takes courage to reveal disgraceful moments in one’s life. What is disturbing to me, however, is that it seems, at least in Zhai Zhenhua’s case, that all the guilt is removed once she made such a revelation and after she blamed someone else for ‘forcing’ her to do so. In both cases, there is no further repentance, so expression of sorrow for the victims they beat, nor any sense of guilt for having participated in such outrageous acts. It may be true that in most cases the authors try to reconstruct the scene as objectively as possible. It would be incredible if they had felt guilty at the time they beat others; otherwise, they would not have done it. However, we all know that historical objectivity is a relative concept, so narrowly defined objectivity will not provide any excuses for the authors’ having not been able to outgrow the mentality they had been in thirty years ago. Is it too much to expect some expression of regret from the former Red Guards, however slight, over their mistreatment of others while they bemoan their own suffering and loss during the Cultural Revolution? Unfortunately, few of the personal accounts include any acknowledgment that the authors also bore responsibility for such a human tragedy as the Cultural Revolution because they voluntarily lent their support and made personal contributions to the system. Most authors of books about the period either deliberately 19

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or innocently ignore this difficult question, either because of the personal discomfort such self-exploration may arouse, or because such questions do not arise in their minds when they recreate their experiences in narratives. The chaos of the Cultural Revolution actually imposed a severe test on individual values and beliefs. Most people were caught between communist propaganda which encouraged brutality against ‘class enemies’ on the one hand, and personal beliefs in what was right or wrong on the other. Many people, including the authors under discussion, conscientiously chose to go with the system, even if this choice would cause misfortune for others. The underlying motivations vary, including the desire to make themselves ‘heroes’ by abusing powerless ‘class enemies’, or the motivation to identify with the main stream for personal benefit, or the fear of being left out, or simply the need to survive. All these factors, together with the Party’s propaganda to encourage and justify all kinds of misdeeds, had the transforming power to turn many relatively innocent people into de facto murders or accomplices. However, which factors played a stronger role during this transformation? Internal or external factors? One can find numerous references to people being driven by external forces, but few, so far, to internal factors, and few acknowledgments of personal errors. Not even the interactions between the external and internal factors have ever been revealed. Most authors portray themselves as victims of the system. Blaming the system, however, will not help to explain why so many Chinese voluntarily participated in violence against each other and some, in extreme cases, even practised cannibalism. This complete omission of internal factors, or subjectivity, in this process of transformation indicates a general weakness in the autobiographies about the Cultural Revolution, especially those published in the West. I have no intention to blame those authors for what they have done. I am simply disappointed that while reviewing their experiences in the Cultural Revolution, few Chinese have been able to go one step further to face the reality that they may also have a share of responsibility because of their contribution to the system. Even if they may be driven by what can be called ‘internalized oppression’, they may still be responsible for their own actions. It would be a shame if my contemporaries, including myself, do not have the courage to admit that we also have to share a part of the blame to the extent that we participated, voluntarily or involuntarily, in the Cultural Revolution, despite the fact that we were victims of the propaganda of that time. The way these personal stories are being told, so far, actually reminds us that we cannot be content simply to have the stories told, from whatever point of view. There is still a long way to go for the Chinese who experienced the Cultural Revolution to understand what these experiences mean to them in a long run, and what the Cultural Revolution means to the Chinese people as a whole. The same problem also prevails in the Cultural Revolution studies by the Chinese intellectuals. In her discussion of ‘the Alienation School’ headed by Wang Ruoshui and Zhou Yang in early 1980s, Wang Jing finds out that the Chinese intellectual repeatedly emphasized the external origin of political and 20

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economic alienation under Mao’s system, but stopped short of discussing the more subtle and more elusive process of ‘internalized oppression’.17 In fact it has already become a stereotypical practice among Chinese scholars to scapegoat exterior agents, Mao, Lin Biao, or Jiang Qing (Madame Mao). Most Chinese scholars still hold them to be responsible for all the evils of the Cultural Revolution whenever they discuss the Cultural Revolution. The question we need to ask, however, is where Mao’s controlling power came from, if he was exclusively responsible for the Cultural Revolution? Being in the position of controlling the institution does not necessarily mean he was able to control the minds of the Chinese people. External power usually has to work hand-in-hand with internalized forces to be effective. I agree with Anne Thurston who maintains that ‘no leaders are possible without followers’, and Mao was not possible ‘without the political culture that allowed him to exist’.18 Wang Jing also correctly pointed out that the way the whole country responded to the fanaticism of the Great Leap Forward, or the Cultural Revolution indicates that ‘subjective practice of the oppressed, or voluntarism’ played a vital role. I totally agree with her conclusion that ‘until Chinese citizens are courageous enough to accept the moral responsibility of the failure of Mao’s revolution, the nation will never outgrow its habit of scapegoating the lesser evil.’19 A system is established on the basis of collective efforts of its people and functions on the basis of the consensus of those within the system, no matter how the social consensus is reached. In other words, individuals do have responsibilities and personal choices to make the system work or fail. The power of the system increases or decreases with the number of citizens who conform to it or reject it. That many Chinese citizens collectively accepted Mao’s system and actively responded to it eventually helped to energize and strengthen the system. Or if we follow Wang Jing’s arguments, we need to identify ‘a particular constitution of national character that allows a Stalin or Mao Zedong to remain in power for so many decades.’ Let us re-examine Zhai’s revelation of her transformation from an innocent girl who was ‘even afraid to watch wars or fighting in movies’ to a cold blooded ‘fighter’ who not only waved her belt with a clear conscience, but simply ‘wiped off the buckle of the belt and fastened it outside her jacket again as though nothing had happened’. Although we are not in a position to judge the historical accuracy of this statement, it is difficult for me to imagine that such a dramatic transformation could happen within seconds without more profound personal reasons. To me, this type of transformation is more or less a voluntary and subjective process instead of a passive or forced one. To identify the role of voluntarism and the interaction between external oppression and internalized oppression will pose one of the most serious challenges to the Cultural Revolution scholars. In conclusion, the Cultural Revolution is described in most personal accounts as an alienating force which caused many to go astray, to abandon common sense and personal judgment. Most accounts, so far, blame oppressive outside agents for their own behaviour. Mao is usually portrayed as a chief villain, along with 21

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his ‘assistants’ in the Cultural Revolution, namely Lin Biao and Jiang Qing. Surprisingly, however, Zhou Enlai remains a hero, despite the fact that he was one of Mao’s chief lieutenants during the Cultural Revolution. Everyone else appears to be a victim. Few former Red Guards and those who abused others came out to admit their own misdeeds and to apologize to those mistreated. Even those who once performed as agents of victimizers and who obviously benefited from the system still portray themselves as victims, as if by doing so they will be able to detach themselves from their past and form their new identity. In the case of Dr Li Zhisui, for example, even his editor Anne Thurston claimed that she was not ‘altogether convinced about Li’s repeated assertions that he did what he did in order to survive’.20 The fact is that without hundreds and thousands of Chinese who voluntarily became Mao’s Red Guards or rebellious forces against others, China probably would not have suffered such an extraordinary human tragedy. It is true that what happened during the Cultural Revolution actually proved that the Chinese system, in a sense, is a ruthless system due to the sheer size of its population. However, not much justice has been done by the personal accounts because most people conveniently forget or deliberately evade the more painful question of their own roles in the Cultural Revolution and their own contributions to the system. The question is why people did what they did during the Cultural Revolution and why do they still shy away from their personal responsibilities. Everyone was a victim, but there are few confessed victimizers. It is high time for the participants, if they want to be fair to history and to prevent a human tragedy such as the Cultural Revolution from happening in the future, to muster enough courage to look inward at the internalized oppression they suffered so that they can eventually free themselves from such oppression. In the long run Chinese intellectuals, as well the Chinese people as a whole, eventually have to outgrow the simple but convenient strategy of scapegoating and overcome the limitation of ‘narrow objectivity’. It will also be a challenge to all the students of the Cultural Revolution to interpret the complex and tragic phenomena of the Cultural Revolution by incorporating personal experiences with more sophisticated scholarly perspectives.

Notes 1 ‘On Questions of Party History’ in China’s Socialist Economy: An Outline History (1949–1984), Liu Suinian and Wu Qungan, eds (Beijing: Beijing Review Press, 1986), p. 598. 2 Hong Yung Lee, The Politics of the Chinese Cultural Revolution: A Case Study (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1978); Lowell Dittmer, Liu Shao-chi and the Chinese Cultural Revolution (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1975); and Roderick MacFarquhar, The Origins of the Cultural Revolution, 3 vols (New York: Columbia University Press, 1974–97). 3 See, for example, Lynn White, Policies of Chaos: The Organizational Causes of Violence in China’s Cultural Revolution (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1990).

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04 See, for example, Wang Shaoguang, Failure of Charisma: The Cultural Revolution in Wuhan (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995); and Lin Jing, The Red Guards’ Path to Violence: Political, Educational, and Psychological Factors (New York: Praeger, 1991). 05 Jeffrey Wasserstrom, ‘Foreword’, in Huang Shaorong, ed., To Rebel is Justified: A Rhetorical Study of China’s Cultural Revolution Movement, 1966–1969 (University Press of America, 1996), p. x. 06 Liang Heng and Judith Shapiro, Son of the Revolution (New York: Knopf, 1983); Nien Cheng, Life and Death in Shanghai (New York: Grove Press, 1987); Gao Yun, Born Red: A Chronicle of the Cultural Revolution (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1987); Lou Zi-ping, A Generation Lost: China under the Cultural Revolution (New York: H. Holt, 1990); Shen Tong (with Marianne Yen) Almost A Revolution (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1990); Chang Jung, Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1991); Zhai Zhenhua, Red Flower of China (New York: Soho Press, 1992); Niu Niu, No Tears for Mao, trans. by Enne Amman (Chicago: Academy Chicago, 1995); Ma Bo, Blood Red Sunset: A Memoir of the Chinese Cultural Revolution, trans. by Howard Goldblatt (New York: Viking, 1995); and Rae Yang, Spider Eaters: A Memoir (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1998). 07 See, for example, Feng Jicai, Voices from the Whirlwind: An Oral History of the Chinese Cultural Revolution (New York: Random House, 1991). 08 Robert Coles, ‘Foreword’ for Feng, Voices from the Whirlwind, p. ix. 09 Ibid. 10 Anne F. Thurston, ‘The Politics of Survival: Li Zhisui and the Inner Court’, The China Journal, 35 (1996), 100. 11 Youqin Wang, ‘Student Attacks Against Teachers: The Revolution of 1966’ (www.stanford.edu/~youqin/Revolution1966.html). 12 Yan Jiaqi and Gao Gao, Shinian shi Wenhua dageming shinian shi (Ten-year History of the Cultural Revolution), 2nd edn (Taiwan: Yuanliu chuban shiyie gufen youxian gongsi, 1990), pp. 89–125; Wang Nianyi, Dadongluan de niandai_ (Years of Turmoil) (Zhengzhou: Henan renmin chubanshe, 1988), pp. 64–92; and Xiao Di et al., eds, ‘Wenge’ zhi mi (Mysteries of the ‘Cultural Revolution’) (Beijing: Zhao hua chubanshe, 1993), pp. 71–88. 13 Zhai Zhenhua, Red Flower of China (New York: Soho Press, 1992), pp. 95–6. 14 Ma Bo, Blood Red Sunset: A Memoir of the Chinese Cultural Revolution, trans. by Howard Goldblatt (New York: Viking, 1995). 15 Ibid., pp. 15–16. 16 Ibid., pp. 31–2. 17 Jing Wang, High Culture Fever: Politics, Aesthetics, and Ideology in Deng’s China (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996), pp. 12–22. 18 Thurston, ‘The Politics of Survival’, p. 100. 19 Wang, High Culture Fever, p. 15. 20 Thurston, ‘The Politics of Survival’, p. 100. Dr Li Zhisui was Mao Zedong’s personal physician for many years and wrote a biography of Mao with editorial help of Anne Thurston. Li Zhisui, The Private Life of Chairman Mao (New York: Random House, 1994).

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3 THE AFTERMATH OF THE CULTURAL REVOLUTION IN INNER MONGOLIA Wu Di

Deng Xiaoping was known for his pithy remarks. Two of the most famous were: ‘One should be crude rather than finicky when dealing with historical matters,’ and ‘Do not get entangled in history. We should unite as one and look to the future.’1 These remarks expressed the guiding ideology which the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) used to cope with the questions left over by the Cultural Revolution; their hidden intention was to require the people to forget it. Due to the fact that those who experienced the Cultural Revolution would rather forget it, and those who did not are indifferent to it, the policy works well. According to mainland newspapers, many of today’s soldiers in the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) have never heard of Lin Biao, one of the most important generals of the liberation war and the most important architect of army philosophy after 1949. Today’s youth, crazy for Western fashions, have no idea of what ‘Red Guards’ actually were. Are these signs that the Chinese have successfully achieved national reconciliation after the drastic conflicts and violence of more than thirty years ago? The appearance of reconciliation is only superficial. In fact neither the leaders’ efforts to drive the Cultural Revolution from memory, nor the widespread people’s feeling that those times are ‘unbearable to recall’, have erased the psychological consequences of the Cultural Revolution. The trauma caused by the violence is festering, and it leads to new social contradictions and unrest. In regions with substantial non-Chinese communities, in particular, these conflicts are the cause of separatism that directly threatens the stability and integrity of the Chinese state.

The causes: conflict in Inner Mongolia and Beijing In Inner Mongolia, three cases of gross injustice and violence connected with the Cultural Revolution are well known. Two of them relate to the Mongols: the 24

INNER MONGOLIA: THE AFTERMATH OF CULTURAL REVOLUTION

‘Ulanfu anti-Party renegade clique’ and the ‘Inner Mongolian People’s Revolutionary Party (IMRP)’. The former case emerged in the middle of 1966 and ended in late 1967, the latter emerged at the beginning of 1968 and ended in April 1969.2 The central figure in both cases was Ulanfu (Ulaanho, Ulaghanköö), an ethnic Mongol, who had views other than those of the Central Committee on political, economic and cultural issues from the 1950s to the middle of 1960s. Ulanfu had resisted the policy of ‘determining class status’ in pastoral areas, was opposed to the radical economic policies of the central government, refused to accept Han Chinese cadres sent to Inner Mongolia, and was displeased with the intervention in the reform of the Mongolian writing system. In other words, he found it difficult to implement his own relatively pragmatic political, economic and cultural policies in the supposed Autonomous Region.3 In 1964, Ulanfu reacted to central government policies by printing and circulating to the cadres in Inner Mongolia the Declaration of China Soviet Central Government to Inner Mongols,4 which had been drawn up by Mao Zedong in 1935. In this declaration, the CCP had promised: ‘The Inner Mongolian people can organise in their own way. They have the right to organise their own life, to build up their own government, to form a federation with other nations, and to declare independence.’5 Ulanfu’s intention was to criticise the CCP for not keeping its word, and tried to use the document to demand the power for the Mongols to make their own decisions. At the same time, Ulanfu held meetings and circulated official documents to the cadres in Inner Mongolia, criticising Great-Han chauvinism. He told the cadres on one occasion: ‘I have been opposing Han chauvinism all my life. I am over sixty-years old now, but I will continue to oppose it until the day I die.’6 Ulanfu’s actions, naturally, aroused mistrust in the Central Committee. As early as the beginning of the 1950s, Mao and other leaders of Han nationality began to resent Ulanfu. In May 1966, together with Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping, Mao decided to overthrow Ulanfu. His decision followed a meeting of the North China Bureau of the Central Committee at the Qianmen Hotel in Beijing at which leaders from Beijing, Inner Mongolia, Hebei and Shanxi gathered to denounce Ulanfu. Immediately before the meeting closed on 2 July 1966, Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping called in Ulanfu and had a long talk with him. Liu Shaoqi accused Ulanfu of grasping the wrong ‘key link’, saying that instead of concentrating on economic development he should have been grasping ‘the key link of class struggle’. Deng Xiaoping reprimanded Ulanfu for ‘local national chauvinism’. He told Ulanfu: ‘you are walking a road which Bao Erhan, Liu Geping and Zha Xi walked, and you are setting up an independent kingdom. If you go on, you will become another Dalai Lama or Panchen Lama! … You have been a Rightdeviationist thinker for a long time; this kind of thinking began in 1953!’7 Although Ulanfu repeatedly offered self-criticism at the meeting, he was accused of disregarding central policies in general, and attacked for opposing the CCP, socialism and Maoism, and for threatening to ‘destroy national unity by 25

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creating ethnic division’. He was described as the ‘biggest party person in authority taking the capitalist road in the Inner Mongolian Autonomous Region’. At the end of 1966, the Central Committee dismissed Ulanfu from his party and PLA posts, and for the next six years, he was deprived of his power and freedom, not returning to the political stage until the eve of the CCP’s Tenth National Congress in 1973.8 The most serious alleged crime of Ulanfu was being an ‘anti-Party renegade and national separatist’. Northern (Outer Mongolia) had been tributary to the Manchu emperors, and had achieved independence in the early 1920s with Soviet support. Many Chinese regarded this independence as barely legitimate, and suspected that the Mongols in Inner Mongolia were interested either in achieving their own independence or in joining the Mongolia People’s Republic. Political parties organised by several independence movements had appeared in Inner Mongolia from the 1920s to 1940s and these Mongols had had close relations with Japan and the Soviet Union. All these things were enough to convince Mao and the Central Committee that a campaign against Ulanfu, his fellow members and their social and ethnic foundation, was necessary.

‘Uprooting and eliminating’: the violence escalates Teng Haiqing, the party boss in Inner Mongolia and a Han commander-general of the Beijing Military Region, carried out the campaign launched by Mao and the Central Committee. It was a nationwide mass campaign of ‘class rank cleansing’, with a local campaign called ‘Uprooting and Eliminating’. To be specific, its aim was to uproot Ulanfu’s alleged accomplices and to eliminate his influence. Teng and his fellows, the members of Inner Mongolia CCP nucleus, believed that there were numerous national separatists in Inner Mongolia who constituted an underground organisation – a new ‘IMPRP’ – led by Ulanfu. This party, it was said, had a political agenda and close relationship with the People’s Republic of Mongolia and the Soviet Union. It was regarded as a revival of the IMPRP created in the 1920s and officially dissolved in 1947, a united front organ of the CCP. The ‘Uproot and Eliminate’ campaign may be divided into three phases. In the first phase, lasting from November 1967 to April 1968, the main tasks were to propagate the existence of the NIMPRP and to uncover misdeeds. The practice of ‘employing the barbarians to control the barbarians’ invented in the Han dynasty was once again put to use in the campaign – revolutionary Mongol masses were mobilised ‘to drag out and struggle against the bad Mongols’.9 The first misdeeds were found at the end of April 1968, when Batu, vice-president of Inner Mongolia University, and Boyin-jabu, deputy director of the Inner Mongolia Military Region Political Department, were arrested. After some eighteen hours of third degree interrogation, Batu broke down and produced a confession, admitting to the existence of a ‘New Inner Mongolian People’s Revolutionary Party (NIMPRP)’ in accordance with the hints given him by his interrogators, and partly on the basis of rumours he had heard. Boyin-jabu 26

INNER MONGOLIA: THE AFTERMATH OF CULTURAL REVOLUTION

furthermore ambiguously stated that ‘The Inner Mongolian People’s Party (IMPP) held a congress in Jining in March 1963’. Little did it matter that he retracted this statement almost immediately, and firmly refused to put it in writing. The second phase of the movement began with a new wave of arrests and lasted from May to November 1968. This phase saw the deepening and broadening of the movement, and struggles against the forces opposed to ‘uprooting and eliminating’. The achievements of the Batu and Boyin-jabu special case groups inspired the CCP Nucleus and revolutionary masses to push further. Six ‘IMPP hard-core elements’ were arrested. All of them were Mongols. The staff of the special case groups, while continuing to interrogate Batu and Boyin-jabu, used their oral confessions and even more extreme means of interrogation to break their resistance. Once this had been done, a wave of new arrests began, and further oral confessions were extracted. There were some who were able to resist the emotional and physical torture to which they were subjected, but normal people’s powers of endurance are limited. The combination of beatings and threats resulted in a large number of false confessions. Some admitted to being Outer Mongolian revisionist intelligence officers, others to being hard-core elements of the ‘IMPRP’. Some informed against their superiors or colleagues; others did what amounted to throwing their wives, relatives and friends into a bottomless pit. Some did this in order to bring their own physical suffering to an end, or to gain a moment’s respite. Some did it in order to gain merit and to atone for their crimes; others, finally, confessed simply as a form of revenge. These communist party cadres, supposedly ‘made out of special material’, did indeed produce ‘special’ confessions. The marvellous plant of the ‘IMPRP’ was nurtured in spirit for almost two years before finally breaking through the soil to turn – just as in the movies – into a giant tree overnight. The tree with its many branches and thick foliage told people that the ‘IMPRP’ was a gigantic underground organisation, with a Centre at the top and branches below, held meetings regularly, and constant secret activities; it had a programme and rules, radio transmitters and firearms, a flag and an official seal; it was spread out over the seven leagues and two cities, the countryside and the pastoral areas, factories and mines, party and government organs, the military district and military schools. By the middle of 1968, the ‘IMPRP’ was no longer just a propaganda produced by Inner Mongolian Revolutionary Committee, and some mass organisations. It had become an ‘actual entity’, its existence proven by a mountain of solid evidence. Teng summed it up: In the open, these are branches of the CCP, while in the dark they are branches of the ‘IMPRP’. The members of CCP and cadres became the main targets of investigation. So a vicious circle arose: arrests, interrogations, confessions which implicated others, new arrests, new interrogations, and more confessions implicating others. The procedure became a routine. The process was similar to the mutual denunciations that had taken place during the Anti-Rightist Campaign in 1957. Party cadres, intellectuals, military officers, and ordinary people exposed and lodged 27

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false accusations against themselves and against others in the fashion described by Dai Qing in her work Chu Anping and the Party’s Universe: They were as if stuck in the middle of a vast expanse of quicksand. When they trampled on others, their vain hope was one of being able to move upwards. But little did they realise that their ultimate fate was to sink with everyone else. Their performance did not convince the people standing on firm ground to give them a hand. It only left them with a bitter feeling of remorse. It was once again a battleground stretched from household to household all across the steppe.10 If it can be said, as Dai Qing has put it, that the Anti-Rightist Campaign was ‘the most tragic and most shameful hour of China’s intelligentsia’, then the movement to ‘uproot and eliminate’ was in the same way the most tragic and most shameful page in the history of China’s Mongols. More and more people were stuck in the quicksand, more and more people were arrested, locked up, and beaten. Everyone, especially the Mongols, were in danger. Gao Jinming, deputy director of Inner Mongolian Revolutionary Committee, briefly tried to put the brakes on the movement.11 But class struggle is a kind of machine which must devour men; only by devouring men could it run. Anybody who tried to stop the machine had to be devoured by it. Half a month later, as soon as Teng Hanqing came back from Beijing, he declared Gao was a Right-deviationist conservative, and a sworn follower of Ulanfu. Gao lost his position and was overthrown at once. This incident marked the beginning of the third phase, the culmination of the movement, which ran from December 1968 until May 1969. The enlarged fourth plenum of the Inner Mongolia Revolutionary Committee in November 1968 was by any measure a crucial milestone. It marks the onset of the culmination of the movement to ‘uproot and eliminate,’ and shows the extent to which Mao’s proletarian headquarters had faith in and supported the Inner Mongolia Revolutionary Committee. It foreshadowed the most tragic and most terrifying period in Inner Mongolia’s long history. In order to be victorious in the battle to ‘uproot and eliminate’, the regional revolutionary committee created a ‘Dig Deep for the “Inner Mongolian People’s Party” Leading Small Group’ at the beginning of December 1968. Commander Teng personally assumed command. At the same time, the revolutionary committee issued a document calling for the expansion of the movement to cleanse the class ranks to include the rural villages and pastoral areas, so as to achieve the total elimination of all enemies. Throughout the region, a ‘registration of IMPRP members’ was carried out, after which those persons who had failed to register in time at the assigned offices were treated without exception as representing ‘contradictions between the enemy and us’. The number of enemies ‘uprooted and eliminated’ multiplied daily as a result of the new policy. CCP members of Mongol descent, and regardless of whether 28

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they admitted IMPRP membership or not, were all subjected to severe torture. By 15 March 1969, an additional 250,000 IMPRP ‘members’ had been ‘uprooted.’ Two months later, by the middle of May, IMPRP ‘members’ numbered 340,000, a figure 50,000 greater than the total number of CCP members in Inner Mongolia.12

Mass dictatorship: the means of violence, cover-up and play up Mao Zedong stated: ‘a revolution is not the same as inviting people to dinner, or writing an essay, or painting a picture, or doing fancy needlework; it cannot be anything so refined, so calm and gentle, … [it is] a violent action whereby one class overthrows another.’13 So, Cultural Revolution must be violent. It meant that the campaign of ‘Uprooting and Eliminating’ in Inner Mongolia had to be the violent ‘masterpiece’. If there were no ‘mass dictatorship’, this ‘masterpiece’ would not have been created. Originally, ‘mass dictatorship’ means believing in the mass’s classconsciousness, depending on the mass to provide judgements in criminal cases, and mobilising the masses to deal with bad people. During the Cultural Revolution, however, mass dictatorship changed into mass violence, especially after Mao said: ‘Dictatorship is mass dictatorship. It is not a good method to arrest somebody by government … . The government and the Left do not need to arrest anybody, we should mobilise the organisations of the revolutionary masses to deal with them by themselves.’14 The functions and rights of the mass dictatorship took further steps which distorted it, exaggerated it and took it to the extreme. It became a ‘right action’ to infringe human rights; it became a legal social act to trample country’s law wantonly; and it became commonplace to defy laws human and divine, and to abandon morality, to treat human life as if it were not worth a straw. As elsewhere in the country, multifarious organisations of mass dictatorship were set up in Inner Mongolia, such as the Special Case Groups, Worker’s Propaganda Teams, Poor Peasant’s Propaganda Teams, PLA Propaganda Teams and Mao Zedong Thought Study Groups. The ‘masses’ smashed the offices of the police, prosecutors and court. The mass dictatorship became ‘mass violence’, a game without rules, a combination of dictatorship and anarchism. Mao’s policy of ‘letting a hundred flowers blossom and a hundred schools of thought contend’ turned out to refer to the hundreds of accusations and punishments. If those accused denied their membership of IMPRP, then they would be accused of membership of some other party, the ‘National Party’, the ‘Good Men Party’, the ‘Cow Dung Party’, the ‘Wicker Party’, the ‘KMT’, and so on. These parties were thought to be peripheral organisations of the IMPRP. In fact, the revolutionary mass could arrest whomever they wanted to, with or without accusations. When I was doing research for my book in Inner Mongolia, I found some documents in the archives of Touketou county. These documents recorded thirty-six kinds of tortures during the ‘Uprooting and Eliminating’ campaign. In the archives 29

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of Tumete Left Banner, the tortures numbered more than seventy kinds. According to official statistics, over 120 kinds of tortures were used in the course of the campaign. They included: ‘Sober thought’ (leng3 jing4 si1 kao3) – to remove the person’s clothes and bind his hands and feet, then take him on the ice and snow; ‘Warm help’ (re4 qing2 bang1 zhu4) – to remove the person’s clothes and force him to stand on a chair which is in front of a flaming stove; ‘Baking a cake’ (lao4 you2 bing3) – to remove the person’s clothes and bind his hands and feet, then put a scorching cover of the stove on his body; ‘Fishing with golden fishhook’ ( jin1 gou1 diao4 yu2) – to bore a hole through the person’s nostril with iron wire, then to lift the iron wire so that the person has to follow; ‘Working a two-handed saw’ (la1 da4 ju4) – to put a thick rope (made of hemp) between a woman’s legs, then have two men pull the rope to and fro from each end; ‘Fire the firecracker in cave’ (dong4 li3 fang4 bao4) – to light a firecracker in a woman’s vagina; ‘Roast pig’s large intestines’ (shao1 fei2 chang2) – to put a scorching stove poker into the person’s anus, roasting his intestines. Almost nobody was able to stand these tortures. But the tortures only went to prove the ‘existence’ of a ‘real separatist clique’ and a ‘gigantic underground organisation’. All of the newspapers, large and small, concealed the truth. Not only did they never mention the mass violence of the movement, but they also propagated and commended the ‘great results’ of ‘uprooting and eliminating’, and praised the advanced experience of the movement. All of the newspapers were full of reports describing ‘how we organised the masses to surround and annihilate the IMPRP.’ In order to win the total victory, the Inner Mongolia CCP had to overcome three main difficulties: the lack of evidence, the scope of attack and, more and more, the matter of deaths. Concerning the lack of evidence, Teng Haiqing made the brilliant remark: ‘It’s not as if it were the communist party … . As long as three persons make similar confessions, each independent of the other, then it’s sufficient evidence.’ In the matter of deaths and forced confessions, Teng made one witty remark after the other: So what if a few people die? … If they die, they die. Do not let it scare you out of your wits … . Why make such a fuss about the death of a few bad people. The enemy is destroying so much that one cannot see. This is a matter of political stand … . We must not be soft in dealing with the Inner Mongolian People’s Party, but must exert a definite pressure … . After the Central Committee’s twelfth plenum, it was rather tough going in some units, and there were some armed struggles. There were some 30

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forced confessions, but nothing extraordinary. There’s no need to make a big fuss of it.’15 Concerning the excessive scope of attack, Teng Haiqing made the following remarks at an enlarged meeting of the standing committee of the Inner Mongolia Revolutionary Committee on 16 February 1969: The question of whether or not the Inner Mongolian People’s Party exists has already been answered, and now we are dealing with the question of how many people it comprises. We should have faith in the masses … . It’s not necessary to determine exactly how many they are. We will simply uproot as many as we find … . Are we being excessive? If anyone has the figures, he can try proving it. How can one know that in a unit where we uprooted one thousand, there were in reality only five hundred?16 On another occasion, Teng asked ‘What’s meant by hitting at too many? Who knows how many per cent are members of the IMPP? … . In Ulan Qab they have uprooted 70,000, which is not a large number compared with three million.’17

The results of violence and Deng Xiaoping’s instructions Ten years later, on 13 November 1979, the Inner Mongolia Party Committee submitted two reports (nos 108 and 110) to the Central Committee. In the first one, ‘The Serious Crimes Committed by Teng Haiqing in Inner Mongolia and How They Should be Handled,’ the party committee added the following concluding remarks to a mass of facts: In his capacity as the one primarily responsible for the party, government and military affairs in the autonomous region, Teng Haiqing did not carry out Premier Zhou’s instructions, but closely followed Kang Sheng and the ‘Gang of Four’, colluded with Wu Tao, Gao Jinming, Quan Xingyuan, and Li Shude in the fabrication of the big trumped-up case of the ‘New Inner Mongolian People’s Revolutionary Party’, and in hundreds of fascist ways penalised and brutally persecuted cadres and masses of the ‘New Inner Mongolian People’s Revolutionary Party’ alone. More than 346,000 persons were ‘uprooted.’ The number of people that died at the time and subsequently as a result of injuries totalled 16,222. The number of people crippled was 87,188. Particularly badly hit were national minority cadres and masses. All ethnic Mongolian cadres above the regiment level in the Inner Mongolian MD were ‘uprooted’. In the MD Political Department, which employs no more than 200 persons, nine (including one pregnant woman) were killed. In gross violation of the party’s minority policy, in the Elunchun banner, with a total population of just over 2,000, literally everyone, adults and 31

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children, was accused of being part of a ‘anti-party renegade clique’. This destroyed the unity of the various nationalities and resulted in grievous hardships to the people of Inner Mongolia. Popular indignation is very great. On the basis of what has been said in this report, Teng Haiqing was definitely the main policy maker responsible for the creation of the trumped-up case of the ‘New Inner Mongolia People’s Revolutionary Party.’ The consequences of his actions were serious, and he bears criminal responsibility that cannot be shirked. Furthermore, he persists in a bad attitude, not admitting his guilt. Therefore we propose that Teng Haiqing be expelled from the party, and that he be held legally responsible for his crimes. The second report is ‘The Crimes Committed by Gao Jinming in the “Cultural Revolution” and How They Should be Handled.’ The content is very much the same; in short, the leadership and victims in Inner Mongolia asked the Central Committee to arrest and bring to justice Teng, Wu, Gao, Quan, and Li. The Central Committee, however, did not reply. On June 1980, the Inner Mongolia Party committee submitted a report entitled ‘On the Fabrication of the trumped-up “Inner Mongolian People’s Party” Case by Lin Biao, Jiang Qing, and the “Gang of Four” ’. This report again stressed: The calamity brought upon Inner Mongolia in the course of digging for ‘Inner Mongolian People’s Revolutionary Party’ members was shocking. Lin Biao, Kang Sheng, and the ‘Gang of Four’ were the chief criminals and chief culprits responsible for this calamity. Teng Haiqing, Wu Tao, Gao Jinming, Quan Xingyuan, Li Shude, Guo Yiqing et al., were criminals who committed the massacre! Their crimes are serious, and popular indignation is very great, and therefore they should be severely punished, according to the statutes of the party and the law of the nation! Otherwise, it will indeed be difficult to calm the indignation of the people of various nationalities in Inner Mongolia. Three months later, in September 1980, the Centre’s reply to the Inner Mongolia Party Committee was that ‘in accordance with comrade Deng Xiaoping’s instructions, the Central Committee has adopted the principle ‘one should be crude rather than finicky, and lenient rather than harsh’, and ‘the Central Committee itself will take administrative action in the cases involving leaders of the Centre’. The so-called administrative action taken was as follows: A

Because of his previous outstanding military achievements, Teng has to be protected. His position remain unchanged, and he will continue as deputy commander of the Ji’nan MR. 32

INNER MONGOLIA: THE AFTERMATH OF CULTURAL REVOLUTION

B

C

Wu Tao is of Mongolian descent, and since it would be inadvisable for him to work in Inner Mongolia, he is to be transferred back to the Beijing MR to be deputy political commissar (Wu died in 1983.). Gao Jinming, Quan Xingyuan, and Li Shude were already demoted in the wake of the movement to ‘uproot and eliminate’, or subjected to training through labour, and it would be inadvisable to subject them to further investigation. They may be given suitable posts in the provinces or municipalities where they are at present, or depending on their age be allowed to retire.

Inner Mongolia presents us with wounds which cannot be healed from within the framework of the present system and ideology. The shielding of ‘political movement criminals,’ the indulgence in leftism, and the weakness and impotence displayed in changing the work style of party and government officials have all left Chinese society with major dormant perils. The leading members of the Inner Mongolia Revolutionary Committee at the time – Teng Haiqing, Wu Tao, Gao Jinming, Quan Xingyuan, and Li Shude – were directly responsible for the biggest miscarriage of justice during the entire Cultural Revolution, the case of the so-called ‘IMPRP’. Since May 1969, the people in Inner Mongolia, in particular the Mongols, have again and again demanded that the Central Committee bring them to justice. But to this day, some thirty years after the reversal of verdict on the ‘IMPRP’, the Central Committee still insists on acting contrary to popular will. The reason, in the words of Deng Xiaoping, is that ‘one should deal leniently with cadres who have committed errors in the course of political movements’, and ‘one should be crude rather than finicky when dealing with historical matters’.

The legacies of trauma: bloody revenges and ethnic separatism The impact of violence on Chinese society and ethnic minorities – the Mongols in particular – was tremendous and far-reaching; the physical and psychological wounds could not be cured by the redress that eventually came. The Mongols of Inner Mongolia have refused to forget the debt of blood owed to them by the CCP and the Han nationality. The violence begot two results. In the short term, acts of bloody revenge have often taken place. For example, in early 1979, a young Mongolian man in Dam Banner broke into the home of a Han, killed him, cut off his head with a sharp sword and cast it into the faces of his wife and children. Then he invited his fellow-villagers to drink, and told them what he had done. He explained that his victim had killed his parents during the period of ‘uprooting and eliminating’ and had since received a clemency by the government. All the villagers regarded him as a hero, and the ones who knew how his parents died agreed to be his witnesses in court. The young Mongol then took the head and rode to the police station in the Dam Banner administrative district. He said to the chief: ‘I came here to turn myself 33

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in.’ He put the head on the desk and said, ‘This is the head of my foe. Ten years ago, he killed my father, and hounded my mother to death. There are witnesses and material evidence. I waited for ten years. You did not punish him, so I punished him myself!’ And then, he took some money from his pocket, put it on the desk, and said: ‘Here is 800 yuan. He killed my parents, and the state gave me this as compensation, 400 yuan for each life. Now I killed him, and you can give his family 800 yuan for one life, is it fair?’ The policemen arrested him. But the next day, all of his fellow villagers and other herdsmen, thousands of people in all, surrounded the police station, and demanded that the young man be set free. The officers had no way out, and did as the crowd demanded. This case remained unresolved. Another tale of vengeance was told to me by the perpetrator himself. His name is Jirumutu, and he was a Mongolian cadre in the Second Woollen Mill of Hohhot. In 1980, he beat a Han person, a section chief in public, and broke the latter’s leg. Then he and his mates put the man on a flatbed tricycle, and took him to the Inner Mongolia Party Committee. He said to the leader: ‘There are 300 Mongols in our mill. Among them 270 were labelled as members of the IMPRP, and some of them were killed. Your policy is to forget our Mongolian internal strife. How many murderers have you arrested? Years ago, he broke my rib and ankle; now, I break his leg. We are even at long last. You, the state and government, who implemented the policy, did not dare to punish him. So I did it for you. What do you think of it?’ The leaders did not dare to say a word, in front of the watching crowds. This case also ended up unresolved. These are only two cases among the many. In the longer term, the trauma begot independence movements. The Cultural Revolution was followed by a series of events in the 1980s and the 1990s. In 1981, thousands of Mongolian intellectuals and students demonstrated in Hohhot, the capital of the Autonomous Region, protesting against the Chinese Communists’ ‘Document # 28’ issued in that year, a document which endorsed mass immigration of Han Chinese. An ‘Inner Mongolian League for Defence of Human Rights’ was founded in the same year, and a ‘Southern Mongolian Freedom Federation’ and ‘IMPP’ were founded in March 1997. In his article, ‘The Inner Mongolian People’s Party is Founded’, M. Altanbat, one of the first members of the IMPP, wrote as follows (in admittedly rather broken English): If we do not want to humiliate the holy memory of 346,000 Mongolians who were killed by the Chinese Communist Party, we must to be sorrowful instead to be happiness at the 1st of May, 1997, and to protest strongly the Chinese Great Han nation’s chauvinism instead to be proud. If we don’t want to agree with the 50 years Chinese Communist Party’s, and the Chinese Government’s policy to exterminate classifidely and to Chinese the Inner Mongolians, we must to rebel, and achieve the real freedom and sovereignty of the Inner Mongolia. The Chechnya with the 34

INNER MONGOLIA: THE AFTERMATH OF CULTURAL REVOLUTION

less the 1 million population after the long term fighting found out the freedom and sovereignty from the colonizer Russia. This case of Chechnya is the real example for the Inner Mongolians who been oppressed under the Chinese Communist Party during the last 50 years. The Inner Mongolians don’t want to be exterminated entirely by the Chinese Communist party and Chinese government like the gentle sheep. We don’t want to forget the Mongolia and to become the Chinese.18 On 20 March 1997 the IMPP was founded officially in New York. The first congress of the party was attended by over fifty people from Germany, Japan, Australia, China, the United States, Canada, and Mongolia (most of them Inner Mongolians). The meeting discussed the ways of saving the Mongolian nation. Tsemtsel, a fighter for Inner Mongolian human rights, was elected as the chair of the party. The IMPP’s stated aim is peacefully and democratically to crush the CCP’s authority in Inner Mongolia, and to fight for the real freedom and sovereignty of Inner Mongolia. The congress ruled that anyone twenty-one years or older who wanted to assist the struggle for the Inner Mongolian sovereignty and freedom or to help materially had the right to become the member of the party. The first congress of the IMPP also adopted the Declaration document for the people of Inner Mongolia: The IMPP was founded to take the precautions the next blood extermination of the Inner Mongolians by the Chinese Communist Party. We must not to wait the time and to act. The next our generation will never forgive us if we could not to use this chance.19 The conclusion of the declaration called Inner Mongolians to the struggle for freedom and honesty: Our holy, honest struggle must be win. Our Great King Chingis Khan helps us. Don’t stop that so far, you will reach; don’t stop that so heavy, you could; Lets struggle, rebel! Leave you scare feelings back, and go ahead for the holy deeds!20 These assembled organisations have the same goals: to fight for true autonomy in social, political and economic spheres, and eventually to build up a free and independent Inner Mongolia. The ‘separatists’, who had not existed before the Cultural Revolution, have finally become a reality as a result of the violence of ‘uprooting and eliminating’.21

Conclusion The case of the ‘IMPRP’ which was created by the movement for ‘uprooting and eliminating’ ended twenty-two years ago, but the research on the topic is still 35

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forbidden in mainland China. The CCP leaders hope that Mongols in China will forget this horrible event, in order to ‘unite as one and look to the future’. The facts above prove that this hope not only comes to nothing, but also that this strategy will lead to a new and more serious crisis for China. Only by facing the violence of ‘uprooting and eliminating’ squarely, and its disastrous effect in time, by punishing the chief criminals – Teng, Wu, Gao, Quan, Li, and others – severely, by ‘uprooting’ the root of the violence, and ‘eliminating’ the soil which creates the violence, and then setting up a new political, economic and cultural system, can the Chinese society free itself of the burden of the past. Only then can the racial tensions between the Mongol and Han nations be relieved. ‘One should be finicky rather than crude when dealing with historical matters’ – Only then can we find some way to immunise against violence. Only by remembering, not forgetting, the violence, can people ‘unite as one and look to the future’.

Notes 01 Deng Xiaoping’s words about being ‘crude’ (cu) rather than ‘finicky’ (xi) were part of his instructions to the authors of the Resolution on Certain Questions in the History of Our Party since the authors of the Founding of the People’s Republic of China in 1980. They have been the subject of widespread resentment among Chinese historians of the Cultural Revolution ever since. Compare, for example, Qu Jiang, ‘Jixu Wenhua Dageming Yixi Bu Yicu’ (When narrating the Great Cultural Revolution one should be finicky rather than crude), Sichuan Difangzhi Tongxun, 1, 1987, 7–9, and Zheng Zhengxi, ‘Cu Ji Wenge Yu Fenshi Taiping’ (‘Crudely’ narrating the ‘Cultural Revolution’ and presenting a false picture of ‘peace and prosperity’), Sichuan Difangzhi, 2, 1988, 13–14, quoted in Michael Schoenhals’ annotation to W. Woody, The Cultural Revolution in Inner Mongolia (Stockholm: Centre for Pacific Asia Studies at Stockholm University, 1993), p. 4. 02 1980/11/2 ‘Zhong hua ren min gong he guo zhui gao ren min jian cha yuan te bie jian cha ting qi shu shu’, quoted in Tu Men and Zhu Dongli, Kang Sheng Yu Nei Ren Dang Yuan An Zhong gong zhong yang dang xiao chu ban shi, December 1995, p. 335 03 W. Woody, ‘Introduction’, The Cultural Revolution in Inner Mongolia (Centre for Pacific Asia Studies at Stockholm University, 1993). 04 A Compilation of National Problems Document Zhong gong zhong yang tong zhan bu: ‘Min zhu wen ti wen xian hui bian’ (1921, 7–1949, 9) Zhong gong zhong yang dang xiao chu ban she December 1991, p. 323. 05 Ibid., p. 323. 06 Woody, Cultural Revolution in Inner Mongolia, ch. 1. 07 Ibid., p. 1. ‘Liu Shaoqi Tongzhi Tong Ulanfu Tongzhi Tanhua Jilu’ (Record of conversation between comrades Liu Shaoqi and Ulanfu) (2 July 1966). Photocopy in the library of the John King Fairbanks Center of East Asian Research, Harvard University. 08 Woody, Cultural Revolution in Inner Mongolia, p. 2. 09 Kang Sheng’s speech to Teng Haiqing in Huairen Hall in Zhongnanhai on 4 February 1968; Woody, Cultural Revolution in Inner Mongolia, p. 9. 10 Dai Qing: ‘Liang suming Wang Shiwei Chu Anping’, Jiang Shu Wen Yi Chu Ban She July 1989, p. 219. 11 Michael Schoenhals, ‘Introduction’, in Woody, Cultural Revolution in Inner Mongolia, p. 4.

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INNER MONGOLIA: THE AFTERMATH OF CULTURAL REVOLUTION

12 Tu Men and Zhu Dongli: Kang Sheng Yu Nei Ren Dang Yuan An Zhong gong zhong yang dang xiao chu ban shi, December 1995, p. 309. 13 ‘Report of an Investigation into the Peasant Movement in Hunan’, in Mao Tse-tung, Selected Works, Vol. 1, 1926–1936 (New York: International Publishers, 1954), p. 27. 14 Mao made these comments between July and September 1967 during an inspection tour of northern, middle-southern and southern China quoted in Wang Nianyi: Da Dong Luan de Nian Dai He nan ren min chu ban she December 1988, p. 270. 15 Zhonggong Neimenggu Zizhiqu Weiyuanhui Wenjian, ‘Guanyu Teng Haiqing Zai Neimeng Suo Fan Yanzhong Zuixing He Chuli Yijian de Baogao’ (Document/1978 – 108 of the CCP Committee of the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region: ‘Report on and suggestions for dealing with the serious crimes committed by Teng Haiqing in Inner Mongolia’) quoted from an unpublished document. 16 Nongmin Yundong, 7 March 1969. 17 Zhonggong Neimenggu Zizhiqu Weiyuanhui Wenjian (1978), p. 108. 18 M. Altanbat, ‘The Inner Mongolian People’s Party is Founded’ (http://www. taklamakan.org/smongol-l/archive/altanbat8.html). 19 Ibid. 20 Ibid. M. Altanbat, one of the first members of the IMPP, was a reporter for the radio station ‘Voice of America’, and broadcast the news of the foundation of the IMPP. 21 M. Altanbat, ‘For the 50 Years Anniversary of the Foundation of the Inner Mongolian Autonomous Region’ (http://www.taklamakan.org/smongol-l/archive/altanbat6.html).

37

4 FORGETTING WHAT IT WAS TO REMEMBER THE INDONESIAN KILLINGS OF 1965 –6 Robert Goodfellow

Kidul Ibu (Mrs) ‘Tukiyem’ and Ibu ‘Ponikem’ are two elderly sisters who live in a rumah sederhana, or basic slum home, in one of the poorest areas of Yogyakarta. ‘Kidul’ is near a kuburan, or graveyard. In urban and village Java, the poorest people generally live near or around the perimeter of a burial ground. Local myth suggests that many residents of this poor kampung are descended from prostitutes that established an outcast community well away from the outer limits of the kraton, or palace, on the banks of Kali Bedok or Bedok River during the late nineteenth century.1 Although the Hindu–Javanese caste system has not officially operated in Central Java since the fall of the Kingdom of Majapahit in 1478, neighbouring village communities still refer to this area as ‘pariah’ or underclass. During the mid-1960s most residents of Kidul, including the sisters’ entire extended family, either actively supported or were in sympathy with the goals and objectives of the Indonesian Communist Party, Partai Komunis Indonesia or PKI. Active support constituted Party or affiliate membership.2 Bapak or Pak (Mr) ‘Gus’, the leader of the larger community group that encompasses a group of villages around Kidul, or the ‘Kidul Rukun Warga’ (RW), confirmed that in 1996, out of around a hundred family groups in the RW some twenty household heads had been members of PKI-affiliated organisations such as the SOBSI (trade unions) or BTI (peasants). Most of these people also held concurrent PKI membership. He simply identified this group as ‘ex’. Many, including two local teachers from neighbouring Klaten – husband and wife – had been Communist Party cadres. However, he added ‘there wasn’t one family in Kidul in the early 1960s without some connection to the PKI’. Most women in Kidul had in fact been members of the PKI’s Women’s wing, Gerakan Wanita Indonesia or GERWANI. According to a prominent member of the community who lived in Kidul during the time, ‘it was what was expected of all women. In Kidul, and in most of Yogyakarta at the time, it was normal’.3 In addition to GERWANI, the left wing LEKRA (People’s Cultural Institute) also enjoyed substantial support in the RW. This support further contributed to the 38

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typically polarised political complexion of Kidul and in fact most of Yogyakarta, and much of Central and East Java at the time. In the early 1960s many artists associated with LEKRA, based as academic staff, students or graduated practising fine artists at the nearby Gampingan campus of ASRI, the Indonesian Fine Arts Academy, lived in Kidul. This was because it was quiet and rentals were less expensive than in the kota or city centre. Kidul was also popular because village life sustained a bohemian atmosphere that complemented the LEKRA artists’ penchant for social realism. Indonesia’s greatest artist, Affandi, for instance, often visited Kidul in the late 1950s and early 1960s to meet friends. He reportedly took ‘great pleasure’ in mixing with local residents.4 Passive support, on the other hand, meant as little as simply benefiting from social, agricultural, cultural or educational projects carried out by PKI members in co-operation with local leaders. To this end the well-organised PKI cadres were known to have kept accurate attendance records for all village-based activities. This practice was later to spell disaster for hundreds of thousands of communists and others across the Indonesian archipelago. This was also the case in Kidul, where most people who had participated in these activities were detained by the Indonesian army at some time during October–December 1965. For example, before September 1965 Ibu ‘Wongso’5 had been a senior member of GERWANI. Her husband was a rice farmer. In 1963 Ibu Wongso’s husband won an award sponsored by the PKI for good farming practices. This involved a sponsored visit to Beijing. The purpose of the visit was to attend international farmers’ convention. It was here that Ibu Wongso’s husband received his award. Ibu Wongso described the occasion in this way. Imagine the honour for our simple farming family. My husband had never been in a car before let alone an aeroplane. The story was in the local newspaper, we had parties to celebrate and to wish him well for the journey. It was the most significant thing to ever happen to our community. It brought great honour to everyone. My husband was so proud. This was how his name ended up on a list of ‘people involved in ‘GESTAPU’.6 My husband was arrested in late October 1965 by soldiers and charged with being part of a nation-wide movement to overthrow the government. They said he was terlibat or involved. My husband was imprisoned for many months in Central Java and then sent to Buru Island. He was there for nearly seven years. This broke his heart. When I visited him in prison in Java he would often cry and say, ‘I am only a simple farmer who won a prize. I have done nothing wrong’. He would also cry out, ‘When will I see the children, when will I taste sweet tea again’. After some time I could not bear to visit him again. [Ibu Wongso said that the next seven years were very hard for her and the children.] I had to conceal my membership of GERWANI. For some reason my name was not on a list. This was very ironic. My husband was imprisoned and I was free. This was the end of our relationship. 39

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My husband died of cancer two months after coming home from Buru. He was like a stranger in his own family and his own community.

30th September 1965 The cause of the trouble in Kidul had its origins far away in the Indonesian capital, Jakarta. In the late evening of 30 September 1965 a poorly planned and badly executed coup d’etat was in progress. It failed after one day. The text of the first proclamation issued by the coup group, led by a small band of disgruntled officers mostly from the ranks of President Sukarno’s Personal Guard and the Indonesian airforce, reflects to a great extent their political thinking. This thinking has been described as ‘a fantastic blend of rightist ideological slogans, personal grudges, moralistic radicalism, and muddled obscurity’.7 Besides the group’s expressed concern for the safety of President Sukarno from the much rumoured threat of a ‘CIA backed-Council of Generals’,8 their dissatisfaction was concentrated on the senior army hierarchy who, they charged, ‘lived in great luxury, neglected their subordinates and humiliated women’.9 However, by the end of the following day the Radio Indonesia and Telecommunications Building and Merdeka Palace in Central Jakarta had been easily reoccupied by forces loyal to the then Major-General Suharto, Commander of the Strategic Reserve Command, Komando Cadangan Strategis Angkatan Darat or KOSTRAD. The coup was at an end. The counter coup was just beginning. The consequences of the brief putsch were not immediately felt. However, within six months the Suharto group within the Indonesian armed forces (ABRI) had pushed Indonesia’s first President Sukarno, from power and had established a military-dominated regime known as the New Order, which ruled the country until 1998. During these same months, an army operation, spearheaded by KOSTRAD and the Indonesian Paracommando Regiment, Resimen Para Komando Angkatan Darat, or RPKAD, had successfully decapitated both the senior organisational and local cadre structure of the PKI. Consequently, the mass base of the third largest legal Communist Party in the world (after the Soviet Union and the People’s Republic of China)10 was effectively neutralised. As Ibu Wongso indicated, this political transition also ripped apart the fabric of Kidul society. Despite the confused, disorganised and spectacularly unsuccessful nature of the self-styled ‘30th of September Movement’ (‘Gerakan Tigapuluh September’, ‘G30S’) the failed coup unfolded as the most significant series of events in the history of post-independence Indonesia (1945–). The coup was in fact a watershed event that marked a revolution in political philosophy, modes of governance, statecraft and geopolitical alliances. It was also a turning point in terms of the violence that immediately followed and the manner in which the memory of the same violence was subsumed into a state-orchestrated propaganda narrative. For public intents and purposes, the story of what happened in Kidul in late 1965 and early 1966, and across much of Indonesia, was forgotten until the forced resignation of President Suharto thirty-three years later, on 28 May 1998. 40

THE INDONESIAN KILLINGS OF 1965 –6

To put the magnitude of the violence into context, Robert Cribb, in The Indonesian Killings: Studies from Java and Bali, has listed numbers of people killed at this time according to some thirty-nine primary and secondary estimates. His table clearly shows the huge differences in accounting for numbers of those killed between October 1965 and March 1966. For instance, two government factfinding missions, one in late 1965 and the other in 1966, put the figure at 78,000 and 1,000,000 dead, respectively; the Government Fact Finding Mission having an interest in keeping the figure as low as possible and the Operational Command for the Restoration of Security, Komando Operasi Pemulihan Keamanan dan Ketertiban, or KOPKAMTIB putting forward the highest figure to justify their effectiveness in ‘eliminating communism’. What is known, however, is that most killings took place in the provinces of Central Java, East Java and Bali, the latter being the worst affected in terms of the concentration and ferocity of violence.11 In Bali for instance, it is estimated that of a population of less then two million some 80,000 persons, or 5 per cent of the population, were put to death.12 Yogyakarta was less affected in terms of deaths or reports of deaths but suffered an equal or greater number of detentions, and then imprisonments.13 However, as more evidence emerges, in particular sources derived from oral testimony, the specific details of local killings begin to reveal a clearer picture. Recently, for instance, the remains were found of twenty-four ‘ex-communist’ residents of Yogyakarta who were moved from Yogyakarta on 26 February 1966 but who ‘disappeared’ en route to the prison in Wonosobo, Central Java, on 3 March 1966.14 This discovery calls into question popular contemporary local beliefs about the nature of the violence in Yogyakarta, namely that the post-coup killings did not affect the Sultanate as they did Central and East Java. Rather, many Yogyakarta people maintain that G30S was somehow accommodated in a halus or sophisticated manner – by orderly arrests rather than slaughter. This raises the point that there are separate and relatively distinct historiographies for the coup and the killings, and that neither is particularly informed by the other. The experiences of people in places like Kidul have been systematically neglected, not for paradigmatic reasons, but probably because historians in the field have perceived insurmountable obstacles to doing so. What evidence of this type, with supporting oral testimony, does do, however, is to challenge the accuracy of surviving fixed, archival or official sources. What people in Kidul experienced during this period is historically significant. What they remember challenges many aspects of the story of 1965–6. Kidul is in fact a microcosm for what happened between 30 September 1965 and 11 March 1966 in towns and villages all over Indonesia, particularly in the Special District of Yogyakarta (Daerah Istimewa Yogyakarta, DIY) and Central and East Java. It is also representative of the process of forgetting what occurred across most of Indonesian society over the three decades of New Order rule. Oral history narratives from Kidul begin to piece together the main themes associated with the process of forgetting what it was to remember the killings. 41

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In writing about this process as a distinctive approach to the history of modern Indonesia, one starting point is the project of restoring a hitherto lost history to a local community, and through this, to other communities throughout Indonesia. This restoration can only be achieved by a comparison of local oral testimony, popular myth and inclusions (or the analysis of omissions) from scarce archival evidence. For example, in November 1965, Pak Rahman, one of the most important and respected people in Kidul was briefly detained by the Indonesian army, released and then summarily and permanently dismissed from his employment. Pak Rahman had been a minor official with the PKI-affiliated Indonesian Postal Worker’s Union. He was in fact a member of a lawful and well-respected organisation that received considerable support and patronage from the highest levels of the government of President Sukarno (1945–66) right down to the lowest levels of village organisation. Pak Rahman’s dismissal was nothing short of a catastrophic event in the life of the Kidul community. However, no evidence of this specific event, and little evidence of violence in Yogyakarta, exists in the available popular press archive. Nonetheless, the impact of even this one incident continues to resonate in Kidul as typical of a distinctive pattern of forgetting and remembering. Pak Rahman’s memories can also be compared to a different type of remembering. During the RPKAD sweep of Kidul in November and December 1965 one of Pak Rahman’s neighbours was shot and killed in the lane way outside his home. Pak Rahman said that this was because his neighbour, a humble becak or pedicab driver, a poorly paid and poorly considered occupation, particularly of the underclass in Javanese society, was an active, even enthusiastic member of the PKI. Pak Rahman commented that the becak driver had been berani or brave, and ‘had strongly resisted the authorities’.15 The distinction I want to make is with what I will refer to as ‘durational memory’.16 Durational time presents the historian with a different type of oral evidence, contingent on the type and manner of questioning, which invites the subject to cast their thoughts back in time and recall the event per se rather than reconstruct the narrative in the light of new experiences.

Remembering and forgetting This is consistent with what Paul Stange argues is Javanese philosophy and worldview, ‘the logic of Rasa’.17 From the perspective of a Central Java based oral history project, rasa is an intuitive ‘feeling of remembering’ rather than a linear contest between memory and context. Again, this is the way that many Javanese describe intellectual processes in general, such as thinking, analysing and remembering. Javanese in fact say they ‘feel’ rather than ‘think’. This is more than an exercise in semantics. These distinctions are important, especially if a case for a Javanese mode of historical teleology – one that somehow encapsulates the past and then projects it into a number of possible futures where it can be ‘archived’ as ‘oral text’, can be sustained. 42

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The point is that neither the dismissal of Pak Rahman nor the murder of the becak driver, nor any number of other episodes of the period, had been aired or recorded in Kidul prior to my fieldwork. In asking the right questions in the culturally appropriate manner I found that several things happened. The first is that the forgotten narratives of Kidul became available for historical analysis. The second is that the methodology of oral history across cultures was exposed. In gathering testimony associated with the social and political upheaval of 1965–6, I asked the sisters mentioned above about their memories of the Sukarno era and, by subtle inference, about the events surrounding the dismissal of Pak Rahman, and specifically about the death of the becak driver. They said that everything always had been, was, and always would be, ‘fine’. When I asked whether they had ever had any trouble in Kidul, particularly during the mid1960s, one sister answered in Indonesian, ‘lumayan, selalu lumayan Tuan’, or ‘fine, fine, always fine, Sir’, and the other quietly sighed in Javanese, ‘sing wis, ya wis’, or ‘what is past is past’.18 The expression ‘sing wis, ya wis’ is, however, not as simple as it appears prima facie. Like many Javanese idioms it actually operates on many levels. In this case the ambiguity between possible meanings creates a type of ‘smokescreen’. This process is predicated on the Javanese social norm that the more subtle, or rather sophisticated the message, the more profound its meaning and the greater its impact. In this case ‘sing wis, ya wis’ is actually a commentary on New Order political and historiographical orthodoxy – a commentary typically buried in levels of language and meaning. It is the means by which something powerful is said by not saying it. ‘Sing wis, ya wis’ is a kromo or high Javanese expression. When enunciated in a soft and controlled tone it literally means, that ‘whatever you have done to me, it is behind us, and all is forgiven (but not forgotten). Therefore, it should not be raised again’. This expression is, however, imbued with irony. This is because if ‘sing wis, ya, wis’ is pronounced in the harsher tones of ngoko, or lower Javanese, with particular emphasis on the words ‘wis, wis’, it means something completely different. Rather it warns, ‘watch yourself, I have not forgiven you at all, although it appears that I have’. A good example of this contrasting system of meanings is that the kromo word Asu means ‘Sir’. In ngoko the same word, pronounced in exactly the same way, means ‘dog’. Despite the typically Javanese understatement implicit in the expression sing wis ya wis, the tragic reality after September 1965 was that almost all of Pak Rahman’s union colleagues, including even those with the most meagre left-wing associations, were identified by lists, betrayed by enemies or frightened neighbours, and then, particularly in Yogyakarta, hunted down by the RPKAD. Many were interrogated and then held in appalling conditions for long periods without trial. Many hundreds of thousands, particularly in the neighbouring Central Javanese cities of Klaten and Surakarta (Solo), in the East Javanese districts of Boyolali, Kediri and Pasuruan, and on the island of Bali, were summarily put to death by their non-communist neighbours, beheaded with rice harvesting knives 43

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or curit, or shot by specially-trained, or sponsored, army execution squads. Many of the ‘disappearances’ were systematically carried out by Ansor, a muslim youth organisation affiliated with the powerful Islamic organisation Nahdatul Ulama (NU). The high profile ASRI lecturer and fine artist Pak Trubus was in fact one of their victims.19 First hand experience or rumour concerning these organised massacres in fact dominate oral history accounts from Kidul. However, after hearing the guarded comments of Ibu ‘Tukiyem’ and Ibu ‘Ponikem’, it comes as a shock to learn that the becak driver had in fact been the husband of Ibu ‘Ponikem’. In Yogyakarta, it appears, or rather it is popularly accepted, that most detainees were not killed, or at least were not killed outright, but held for ‘processing purposes’, imprisoned or released under surveillance. The belief that the situation in Yogyakarta was somehow less brutal and more halus deserves serious attention. The Yogyakarta world-view, in part typified by a sense of subjective cultural refinement, reflects a preoccupation with the minimisation of conflict, or more precisely the minimisation of the appearance of disquiet. Many PKI members from Kidul, and across Yogyakarta, were not executed outright like the becak driver, but were detained in hastily constructed barbed wire and guard tower complexes, such as the one outside the neighbouring city of Klaten set up at the site of the Second World War Japanese airfield (now again an ABRI training facility).20 Further, many hundreds of ‘Category A’ political prisoners spent years without trial in the ex-colonial Fort Vredeburg on Jalan Maliboro, now one of Yogyakarta’s most important tourist attractions. The erasure of both the military barracks as a physical landmark and of Vredeburg’s association with 1965 is an important future topic of historical investigation. In the decades that followed 1965, Pak Rahman and many like him found themselves on the losing side of a one-sided civil war.21 For thirty-three years he, like most Indonesians who were deemed terlibat or involved in the coup, which Army propaganda expanded to G30S/PKI, the 1930 September Movement of the Indonesian Communist Party,’ did not speak of his union membership, his connections to left-wing politics and activism, the events of 1965–6, or the ensuing trauma, to anyone outside his immediate family, and then ‘only in secret and in whispers’. I was the first ‘outsider’ to gain his trust and be permitted to ask him, and a large number of others in Kidul, about what popularly become known as the ‘Peristiwa 65’ or Special Occurrence of 1965.22 As Anne Laura Stoler and Karen Strassler so eloquently put it, ‘in hushed accounts of the 1965 coup and its bloody aftermath the ‘I’ disappears quickly replaced by an agent-less discourse of silences and vague allusion’.23 Between 1993 and 1997 I rented a small house at the back of the kampung of Kidul next to a river, beside a graveyard. I became for all intents and purposes a member of the community. The longer I stayed in Kidul, the more trust I earned, particularly with the large number of local ‘ex’ – the simple village code for former communists. This term was derived from the official code, ‘Ex-Tapol’, ‘ET’ or former political prisoner, which appeared on identity cards. Understanding the complex and sensitive factors that led to forgetting what it was to remember 1965 44

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could not have been gained without a patient, personal and long-term approach to compiling and analysing the oral history of my Kidul friends and neighbours. This is not to say that this approach is not problematic, especially because of the pitfalls associated with the historiographical regurgitation of common knowledge, ‘the gossip of who did what to whom, presented in a theoretical framework’.24 However, the forces of political, social and historical forgetting that was imposed by the victorious Indonesian military in March 1966 can be clearly seen in the later remembrances of the people of the small community of Kidul. While state political theatre, propaganda and memory manipulation dominate the intrigue associated with the actual coup and its aftermath, buried within this performance are stories that tell the historian generally about the violence in 1965 and specifically about the historical process of forgetting. Given the scarcity of archival sources, evidence of this period is, for the most part, only retrievable by means of an oral history project. These oral history narratives compare and contrast the unfolding official propaganda that emerged in the popular press in the first weeks and months of October and November 1965. An examination of these narratives will determine how the propaganda message was conveyed so successfully from the political centre in Jakarta to every village community in Indonesia – such as Kidul Pak Rahman, for example, was never officially charged with a crime, nor imprisoned, yet he, like most Indonesians became in some way complicit in the ‘great silence’. This silence was in effect a historical vacuum, back-filled with propaganda, myth and the trappings of cultural and economic distraction, typified, on the one hand, by the deeply rooted Javanese preoccupation with minimising conflict (reinvented and strengthened as a convenient political tool by Suharto), and, on the other, by the Indonesian preoccupation with modernity – in this instance again redefined by the New Order as ‘development’ (in effect collusion, corruption, nepotism, and crony capitalism).25 It has to be noted that the liberalisation of official policy towards ex-PKI members and affiliates has come about only following the resignation of President Suharto on 28 May 1998. The significance of the popular renegotiations of the meaning of ‘1965’ after this time creates an important comparison with thirtythree years of memory suppression and forgetting. An examination of one is not complete without the historical perspective of the other. However, there can be seen in the few but significant primary documents of the period a comparison between the way in which the New Order propaganda narrative entered popular consciousness in 1965 and the way in which this was peeled back in the first five months after Suharto resigned in May 1998.

Silences in the narrative An examination of these documents in the light of contemporary oral testimony allows me to look for evidence of narrative silences from the first days that ordinary Indonesians become aware of the implications of a complete change in political culture emanating from Jakarta in October 1965. By 11 March 1966, 45

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when President Sukarno reportedly signed the ‘Supersemar’, or Executive Order,26 which formally transferred his powers to Suharto, the process of ‘New Orderisation’ of historical consciousness was essentially complete. A new and radically different hegemony had filled the political vacuum created by the unexpectedly successful annihilation of the PKI. This period can be seen as the critical genesis of forgetting that would set the pattern for the historical silence to follow. My interest is in the story of forgetting in a small, but typical Javanese kampung community, not in a history of elite, Jakarta-based political intrigue. It takes up the challenge laid down by Michael Foucault in ‘On Power’,27 namely, ‘that the question of “who exercises power?” cannot be resolved unless that other question “how does it (or rather how did it) happen [in this case across the great mass of the Indonesian populace]?” is resolved at the same time’. As Michel-Rolph Trouillot adds in ‘Silencing the Past’: Power does not enter the story once and for all, but at different times and from different angles. It precedes the narrative proper, contributes to its creation and to its interpretation. Thus, it remains pertinent even if we can imagine a totally scientific history, even if we relegate the historian’s preferences and stakes to a separate, post descriptive phase. In history, power begins at the source.28 It is the source of this power as exercised in village Java, particular those areas previously under the hegemony of the PKI, that is the real political locomotive of New Order rule. The power to dictate silences in the production of historical narratives of ‘what was said to have happened’ in 1965. This story of ‘what happened’ was so successful that it endured to the end of Suharto’s rule in 1998 and in fact still thrives today in the minds of the victors, their ideological supporters and those who prospered from the patronage of the New Order. As the following testimony indicates, it is so powerful that it even lives on in the memories of those who were not directly involved. My example is as follows. M’bak (Miss) ‘Dewi’ lives and works in Yogyakarta but spends weekends with her parents in Klaten outside Yogyakarta. She said that it is a rahasia umum or open secret that the town square or alun alun of Klaten is a mass grave. M’bak Dewi explained that most people in Klaten believe the mythos or myth that in November or December 1965 local farmers organised a direct deputation to the commander of the local ABRI squad for the execution of communists. The purpose of this desperate measure was to complain that the thousands of corpses of slaughtered communists were spoiling the sawah or wet rice fields and that ‘if ABRI did not find an alternative to throwing the bodies in the river then everyone would starve’. M’bak Dewi explained that, ‘people believe that one night the alun alun was barricaded with barbed wire and guarded by tanks so that there would be no eye-witnesses, and bulldozers moved in to dig a large open grave. Soldiers then moved an inestimable number of bodies from the river and padi to the great hole in the square’. 46

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M’bak Dewi then made the comment that, ‘every time people walk past the alun alun on their way to shop, or to the market, or to work, they have to forget what they know. It is like a woman who has been raped and has to live in a world full of men – she has to struggle very hard to forget’.29 This powerful metaphor suggests that while remembering is a passive process, forgetting is a determined and deliberate act. This testimony also suggests that myth is an important component in historical production, because on careful questioning the alun alun Klaten story is revealed as essentially apocryphal – everyone has heard the story, and believes it to be authentic, but no one has actually met an eyewitness. Complex and very human narratives such as this form part of a broad discussion about what characterised the initial relationship between forgetting and the production of non-official Indonesian historical discourses in the vital first weeks and months of General Suharto’s rise to power. I would suggest that, in history as with power, forgetting begins at the source.

Oral history and historical memory How then does one define ‘the source’? History is the collision of character and circumstance. It is complex and essentially contestable. As E. H. Carr noted in 1961,30 ‘the present age is the most historically-minded of all ages’. Clearly this consciousness has seen late twentieth century historians accommodate all forms of evidence – both oral and archival – as equally admissible in the great court of historical writing. It is now the complex interrelationship between sources and the way in which they are integrated that remains the challenge. The use of new sources in history is nothing new. For instance, Carr draws our attention to the tendency of mediaeval European historians to view their society through the prism of religion due to the exclusive character of their sources; in the eighteenth century, European scholarship concentrated on the history of elites – essentially the story of great men and great deeds – for the same reason; and in the early twentieth century the social history of whole national communities emerged, itself arising out of a rapidly expanding concept of new forms of evidence and fresh fields of historical interest. Carr significantly spoke about a pervading sense of a ‘modern world in perpetual motion’31 and a present ‘revolution in our conception of history’.32 Oral history has indeed been such a revolution. It has changed the relationship between the past and present in historical research. As Paula Hamilton writes, ‘oral history did not “fix” the past in the way that many sources generated at the time did. For the first time historians assisted in creating the sources in the present and so became aware of the “retrospective and fluid” character of memory’.33 Modern historical writing, however, was crafted by structuralists to be ostensibly scientific. Credible evidence is still considered as empirically falsifiable, rather than subjective, or movable and living. For this reason, despite the profound influence of the oral history movement of the early 1960s,34 Western historical writing has remained, to a great extent, preoccupied with the search 47

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for patterns, comparisons, methodology and ‘sound theoretical frameworks’ within fixed sources. Consequently, the ‘eye-witness’ interview and plain narrative are often consigned to a position of secondary importance – subservient to nagging concerns about ‘inaccuracy’. For many people, this has produced an over-structured history without an active, participating subject, one where theory prevails at the expense of more materialist or culturalist approaches to the human condition. The Jewish Holocaust historian Lawrence L. Langer has raised some important questions about how oral history practitioners might better ‘process’ the very human act of communal violence into historical discourse. For instance, should historians hope to cure or to right a wrong?35 Should they seek to construct a manageable version of a story that is considered outside ordinary human terms of reference by ‘perpetuating the myth about the triumph of the spirit (that colours every disaster with a rosy tinge) that helps us to manage the unimaginable without having to look at its naked and ugly face’.36 Or, alternately, should historians take their readers to the brink of ‘moral chaos’ in their ‘private intellectual search for meaning’.37 Langer suggests a number of approaches to human misfortune in the writing of contemporary history.38 Avoid pretentious evasions such as a discourse of resistance to replace one of meaningless suffering.39 Rather, subjects must be afforded the dignity to be honest about the nature of absolute ruin, which means, in the case of Indonesia, that the memory of mass killings, disappearances, detentions and imprisonments of October 1965 to March 1966 were not an illness from which Indonesians could be cured or a trauma from which victims will ever recover.40 It is rather something which people have forgotten how to remember. The complex reasons for this are my present preoccupation. Because, as Casey suggests (drawing on Nietzsche’s essay ‘On the Uses and Disadvantages of History for Life’, 1874), that, like the bovine, people are capable of ‘forgetting what it is to remember’ – even to the point of having ‘forgotten, forgetting’.41

Remembering But what about ‘remembering’ in the context of Suharto’s New Order (1965–98)? Nyi Mardiyem, a former jugun ianfu (slave-prostitute for the Japanese army during the Second World War), spoke of her experiences during the war to a very public gathering in Yogyakarta in 1997. Her story, and how this story was told, tells us something about the process of forgetting and remembering a year before the resignation of Suharto. Nyi Mardiyem explained to the spellbound audience, in reserved but confidant tones, how, together with other young girls from her village, she was ‘forcibly recruited into a life of shame and degradation’.42 She was offered comfort and support by organisers as she emotionally ended her speech with a prayer to ‘Allah’ for ‘long life’ so that she could ‘continue to bear testimony to the violence and humiliation committed against her and tens of thousands of other Indonesian women’. 48

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Significantly, the event received wide media coverage, at least in the Yogyakarta press. Leading local dailies and popular magazines carried half page advertisements promoting the programme and stating the movement’s objective of exposing the intimidation, discrimination and abuse of women and children by men.43 While sensitive issues such as domestic violence have received scholarly attention from Western researchers44 and the Indonesian press have embraced sensational issues such as the July 1995 home invasion and rape of a mother and her two young daughters in Jakarta, and the murder of forty-two women by Dukun ‘Datuk’ in Kampung Cinta Damai in Sumatra in 1997,45 the interest of journalists in the Nyi Mardiyem case marked something of a watershed in the reporting of both historical and contemporary violence. This is particularly true of movements dedicated to raising, and then dealing with, what were generally considered to be Indonesia’s ‘historical problems’ (masalah sejarah). According to exhibition organiser, Dewi Ratnawulan, a public and painful discussion of the plight of former jugun ianfu would not have been possible even two years earlier.46 Significantly, no mention was made of 1965 in any public forum, although there were carefully veiled intimations regarding ‘unresolved historical issues’. In a Kedaulatan Rakyat article of 3 August 1997,47 exhibition curator, Dr M. Dwi Marianto, head of the Research and Development Department of the Indonesian Art Institute or ISI in Yogyakarta, made the important point that the primary function of the exhibition was to ‘raise public consciousness’ and thereby ‘plant ideas into the feelings, thoughts and desires’ or ‘membenamkan ide ide dalam dataran rasa, cipta dan karsa’ of everyone involved. If considered in this way, the exhibition in general, and the launch in particular, was a great success. Former jugun ianfu Nyi Mardiyem, mentioned earlier, was significantly ‘permitted’ to play a role in raising public consciousness, elaborating to reporters that rape was ‘only one level of violence in [Indonesian] society’, and that there were other, deeper examples of violence, ‘below the surface’, which have not been exposed – both ‘physical and non-physical’. These comments appear to have had a rather invigorating effect on the activities of the Yogyakarta press. Ashadi Siregar, writing for Kedaulatan Rakyat,48 took the opportunity to raise a raft of issues constructed around the well-known story of R. A. Kartini, nationalist heroine and champion for women’s rights in Indonesia. Siregar then went on to examine discrimination and violence in a broader context, from HIV/AIDS to workers’ rights and conditions, from labour market reform to the ‘structural problems and interpretation of the state ideology Pancasila, in the context of capitalism’.49 Finally, Ashadi Siregar raised the cause célèbre of the murdered factory activist M’bak Marsinah, who, according to Siregar, was singled out ‘first because she was a common worker, second because she was an activist and third because she was a woman’. Towards the back of the newspaper (a remote location where the Ministry of Information censors seldom ventured), was constructed a bold analytical comparison between Marsinah and the ‘structure and ideology’ of violence and discrimination in Indonesia, and the case of Ibu Megawati Sukarnoputri, the then 49

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‘deposed’ leader of the Indonesian Democratic Party or PDI. The political neutralisation of Megawati by the Suharto Government, the author argued, was another, but different, case of ‘ideological violence’, in fact a ‘portrait’ of ‘naked discrimination and intimidation in the public rather than private domain’. ‘Naked discrimination and intimidation in the public domain’ was significantly the subject of a dramatic production, ‘Carousel atau Komidi Putar’, staged in Fort Vredeburg on the second night of the exhibition by the Sanggar Garasi Group, of Gadjah Mada University. Nyi Mardiyem’s evocative comments about deeper examples of violence in society ‘below the surface’ appear to have given Sanggar Garasi a powerful opportunity to critique brutality, in this case through the prism of communal violence. The producer, Baskoro Budhi Darmawan,50 was, however, obviously being very careful when he described ‘Carousel atau Komidi Putar’ in the press as: ‘designed to resolve’, or rather ‘open-up’ unresolved contemporary issues’.51 In stark contrast to these modest comments, the performance was rather a dramatic and disturbing graphic representation, or rather a gruesome feast, of violent images. The play clearly represented a critique of both the genesis and finalé of communal violence. This violence encompassed a number of issues including the rape and murder of women by men, but actually focused on the ‘hypothetical’ subject of an urban street riot. The spectacle of flaming props and an enormous back-drop slide screen, which flashed images of savagery from Jalan Thamrin in Jakarta to the west bank of the Jordan River, from the Vietnam War to caged political prisoners in Chile and Nazi execution squads shooting elderly Jewish men in ditches, contributed to the dramatic effect. The play’s final act, a crescendo of pathos and destruction, was unforgettable. The association with the 27 July 1996 riots in Jakarta, when military-backed members of a faction of the PDI stormed party headquarters violently evicting hundreds of Megawati supporters triggering off city wide riots,52 was unmistakable, as were echoes of a previous and more brutal ‘historical problem’ – 1965–6. On the evening of 11 August, one week after the launch of the anti-violence campaign against women at Vredeburg, Basis magazine53 sponsored a night of poetry reading in honour of Sitor Situmorang, hosted at one of the Yogyakarta kraton residences of the younger brother of Sri Sultan Hamengubuwono X, Gusti Joyokusumo. A prominent literary figure during the so-called ‘Old Order’ era, Sitor had been Chairman of the National Cultural Institute (Lembaga Kebudayaan Nasional – LKN) from 1959–65. Significantly, both Sitor’s Chairmanship of LKN and his literary career, were abruptly terminated in October 1965. A question fielded from the audience through the moderator, B. Rahmanto from Sanata Dharma University, asked why Sitor had not published anything between Sastra Revolusioner (1965) and Dinding Waktu (1976).54 The question gave Sitor the opportunity to put aside issues of literary merit and syntax, and to explain rather humorously, but profoundly, what according to him, constituted or did not constitute a ‘dark period’ in a writer’s life and whether the non-publication of work could be considered as ‘unproductive’. Any direct mention of his imprisonment and the violent upheaval following the night of 30 September 1965 was avoided 50

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by the use of intimation, double-entendre and punning. This technique cleverly embellished the poet’s veiled views about the years after 1965 without once requiring him to raise them explicitly. This discussion, in turn, had a profound effect on the audience, who were clearly unaccustomed to discussing the issue in a public forum. Perhaps simply coincidentally, early August 1997 also marked the local publication of the novel Ojo Dumeh by Agnes Yani Sardjono.55 Ojo Dumeh, (a Javanese term that means, when you become rich, famous and powerful, do not forget those who helped you), is a story set in Yogyakarta around the 1983–5 killings of thousands of known criminals, and ‘others’, by specially trained army ‘hit-men’. The so-called ‘Petrus’ affair (from ‘Penembak Misterius’ or ‘Mysterious Gunmen’) provides the social canvas for Sardjono’s central character, the freelance journalist Samhudi. The book is about a dilemma. It is about friendship, trust and betrayal (in the text this is represented by the dilemma, represented by the Javanese expression, ‘Samhudi bagai makan buah simalakama - ditelan atau dimuntahkan buah itu?’ – if I eat the poison fruit I will die, if I do not eat it then I will die of hunger. But it is also about the rich, dark world of the ‘gali’ or ‘preman’, the organised criminal gangs who ‘ruled the streets’ of Yogyakarta, in particular, before their violent extra-judicial annihilation. Ojo Dumeh is about unresolved ‘historical issues’, about unexcavated memories – Samhudi’s novel puts literary flesh and bones on to characters which otherwise remain anonymous victims of the ‘mysterious gunmen’. Nyi Mardiyem’s story, told so powerfully at Vredeburg, transforms the myth and speculation surrounding former jugun ianfu into historical discourse. Sitor Situmorang’s description of the effect of his literary ‘dark period’ (1965–76) personalises, or rather humanises, the experience of thousands of Indonesian writers, poets and artists who were sucked into the historical vortex of ‘Lubang Buaya’ or ‘the Crocodile Hole’ – a common well on the parameter of Halim Perdanakusumah Airforce base outside Jakarta where the bodies of the murdered generals were thrown, and which later became a New Order shrine to the ‘treachery’ of communism. In this way, each of these examples raised the prospect that Indonesians may soon be able to confidently ‘clear the historical air’. The interest of journalists in Nyi Mardiyem, the quasi-official support of the public poetry reading of Sitor Situmorang, and the publication of Agnes Yani Sardjono’s novel are all examples of Ojo Dumeh. They all say ‘never forget’. All of these cases represent a watershed in the reporting of both historical and contemporary violence in Indonesia. However, most important, the exhibition in particular bore clear reference to Indonesia’s ‘masalah sejarah’ or ‘historical problem’, namely the killings, ‘disappearances’, torture, imprisonment and rape of the period from October 1965 to March 1966. Significantly, it was well appreciated at the time that a public discussion of the plight of former jugun ianfu would not have been possible even two years before the exhibition. Any public debate whatsoever about the killings of 1965 would have been completely unthinkable prior to the resignation of President Suharto in May 1998. (The issue of the sexual abuse 51

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of women in detention by the Indonesian military following 1965 is still a subject that is considered ‘off limits’.) Rather, under the New Order regime all forms of ‘unofficial or anti-order memory’ were selectively and violently suppressed. The importance of validating and evaluating the experiences of ‘survivors’ rather than suppressing or dismissing the past suffering of the many ‘victims’ of the killings of 1965 is at the heart of this process, which involves two discrete lines of historical inquiry, namely what characterised the officially enforced ‘forgetting’ of New Order rule? How does this compare to the public ‘remembering’ of 1965 in the post-Suharto period? Or according to Stoler and Strassler, [What were the conditions] that shaped what has been remembered, to the materiality of means, to the contexts in which individuals and collectivities make conscious or unconscious choice about what is better left unnourished by a comfortable narrative frame, better left unrehearsed and perhaps forgotten.56

Notes 01 From a series of confidential interviews with residents of Kidul, particularly following the weekly meeting of village family heads, Kidul, Yogyakarta, August to November 1996. 02 Confidential interview with the Pak RW Kidul ‘Gus’, head of the second tier of village organisation in Indonesia based on a system implemented by the Japanese Army during the Second World War, Kidul, Yogyakarta, 17 August 1996. 03 From a series of confidential interviews with Ibu ‘Madi’, Kidul, Yogyakarta, August to November 1996. 04 From a series of confidential interviews with Pak ‘Heru’, Kidul, Yogyakarta, August–November 1996 and from an interview with the artist’s daughter, Kartika Affandi, Yogyakarta, October 1999. 05 Confidential interview with Ibu ‘Wongso’, ‘Kidul’, Yogyakarta, 21 July 1997. 06 ‘GESTAPU’, from the acronym derived from ‘Gerakan September Tigapuluh’ or 30th September Movement. The term was coined by the editor of the Armed Forces Newspaper, Angkatan Bersendjata, Brigadier-General Sugandhi, with the intention of ‘investing it with the aura of evil associated with the term ‘Gestapo’. See Michael van Langenberg, ‘Gestapu and State Power in Indonesian’, in Robert Cribb, ed., The Indonesian Killings of 1965–1966: Studies from Java and Bali (Clayton, Victoria: Monash University Centre of Southeast Asian Studies, 1990 [Monash Papers on Southeast Asia 21]), p. 46. 07 Benedict R. Anderson and Ruth T. McVey, A Preliminary Analysis of the October 1, 1965, Coup in Indonesia (Ithaca, NY: 1971), p. 27. 08 Rob Goodfellow, Api Dalam Sekam: The New Order and the Ideology of AntiCommunism, Monash University Centre for Southeast Asian Studies Working Paper no. 95 (Clayton, Victoria: 1995). See footnote 1, p. vii. 09 Anderson and McVey, op. cit., p. 28. 10 By August 1965 the PKI estimated its strength at twenty million members and affiliates. See the PKI’s newspaper Harian Rakyat, 20 August 1965, quoted in Rex Mortimer, Indonesian Communism under Sukarno: ideology and politics, 1959–1965 (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1974), p. 366. At the time the PKI maintained that membership in late 1965 consisted of the following: PKI members 3.5 million, LEKRA (artists

52

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11

12 13

14

15 16 17 18 19 20

and writers) 5 million, Pemuda Rakyat (youth) 3 million, SOBSI (unions) 3.5 million, BTI (peasants), GERWANI (women) 3 million and HSI (graduates) seventy thousand. Violence was by no means restricted to Java as the following interview demonstrates. Pak ‘Winston’ was the son of a pro-Dutch clan chief on the island of Roti, near Timor. His father was ‘famous’ for defiantly flying the last Dutch flag in the Netherlands Indies during the first days of Japanese military occupation. Subsequently he was arrested by the Japanese military police and executed by beheading. After the end of the Pacific War, Pak Winston was adopted by the wife of a senior Dutch official in B’aa. Following Indonesian independence he was repatriated to Holland with his adopted family where he lived, worked and studied until he decided to return to Indonesia in September 1965 to visit his Rotinese family. He quickly admitted that his timing couldn’t have been worse. He said that his family had been pro-Communist, and that in November 1965 the police in Kupang provided the Army with ‘a comprehensive black list’ of communists and leftists in Roti. He said that he was in ‘Pasar Baru’ in November 1965 when about fifty communists and their families were shot. This included all of the local teachers – including members of his family. He said that he was too frightened to try and leave Indonesia for ‘some years’ because of his family connection with the PKI. Subsequently his Dutch passport expired. Even now he said he was reluctant to apply for a new passport, or to travel beyond West Timor. Confidential interview with Pak ‘Winston’, Kupang, West Timor, 19 June 1997. See Geoffrey Robinson, The dark side of Paradise: political violence in Bali (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1995). Donald Hindley, The Communist Party of Indonesia, 1951–1963 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1964), pp. 222–9. This difference may in part be explained in electoral statistics. Data from the 1955 general election and the 1957/58 local elections indicate that although Communist support (over 50% of the popular vote) was concentrated in a rough quadrilateral within the Malang to Blitar area of Central and East Java – particularly the cities of Semarang and Surakarta – Yogyakarta delivered a considerably smaller vote for the PKI, although there was an increase from 25.8 per cent in 1955 to 32.8 per cent in the 1957 elections and projections of similar growth in support in the period up to September 1965. See ‘Remains of Slain ex-Communist activists found in Wonosobo’, The Jakarta Post, 27 November 2000. This excavation was the initiative of the National Commission on Human Rights (Komnas Ham) and the Institute for the Study of the 1965/66 Massacre (YPKP). From a series of confidential interviews with Pak ‘Rahman’, Kidul, Yogyakarta, August–October 1996. Lawrence L. Langer, Admitting the Holocaust (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995), p. 16. Paul Stange, ‘The Logic of Rasa in Java’, Indonesia, 38 (1984), 119. Confidential interview with Ibu ‘Tukiyem’ and Ibu ‘Ponikem’, Kidul, Yogyakarta, 10 August 1996. Confidential interview, Yogyakarta, 5 November 1997. Coincidental interview with Pak ‘Paulus’ who has lived across from the old airfield in Klaten since the Second World War, September 1996. Pak Paulus is a retired police officer. He is a Catholic. He showed me the area, which in 1965 was an abandoned Japanese military airfield, but is now an Indonesian Armed Forces (ABRI) barracks and training facility. He said that he was an eyewitness to the military’s rounding up of communists in mid-October 1965. He said the old airfield was used to ‘classify Pemuda Rakyat’ – or members of the PKI Youth Wing. He said the military cordoned off the area with barbed wire and set up large spotlights. Anyone who tried to flee was cut down with machine gunfire. He said he saw a number of people attempt escape. They were killed. He said that because the airfield was opposite his house he watched

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21

22

23 24 25 26

27 28 29 30 31 32

the activity for many days. He said prisoners were classified into A, B and C. ‘A’ category were taken away in trucks. ‘B’ and ‘C’ were ‘processed for punishment’. Paulus said that at this time a friend from the military told him that his name was on the ABRI ‘black list’. He immediately fled to the West Javanese city of Bandung. He stayed away from Klaten for three months, until the situation ‘cooled down’. He subsequently encountered no trouble with the military. He made a special point of saying that the Pemuda Rakyat in Klaten were ‘kapala batu’, or stubborn, and many faced up to the military ‘bravely’. He said he has no idea what happened to the yang berani, or the ‘brave ones’. He presumed that they were all shot. He further commented that even now if you are from Klaten, and you have to deal with the authorities, for any matter, they pay ‘special attention’ to your ‘background’. Pak ‘Mohan’ is a retired civil servant who lives with his family in Yogyakarta. He was originally from East Java. His family are landowners and farmers. According to Pak ‘M’ his village is predominantly ‘devout’ Moslem. It was also one of the areas affected by the PKI’s aksi sepihak – the forcible land distribution movement of 1963–4. Pak Mohan said that low-key communal violence between the PKI, in particular the PKI’s youth wing Pemuda Rakyat, and landowners was a prominent feature of life in his village in 1963–4. Although only eighteen-years old at the time, he said: ‘everyone knew that something was going to happen. Actually our community believed that given the strength and optimism of the PKI, and the support they received from Sukarno, they were preparing to ultimately wipe out Islam in Indonesia. There was a lot of talk about the PKI preparing “death lists”, particularly of landowners’. When the killings started in mid-October 1965, Pak Mohan said that the communists killed many Islamic religious leaders. ‘I remember seeing some of the people responsible caught. They were shot by people in my village and buried in a big hole. At the time we were fighting for our lives. I have no doubt that if the communists had won then my family would have been the first victims. It just so happened that the communists were caught off-guard and quickly destroyed. Of course there were many innocent victims, communist and non-communist. I saw this for myself. The political situation was very confused. It actually was like a war, a civil war’. In Kidul I earned the village nickname of ‘Demit Bedok’ or the ‘demon’ of Bedok River. This was because I lived for long periods on my own and did not sleep with the light on at night – hence, according to my neighbours, I must be more powerful than the hantu or ghosts that were believed to live at the water’s edge. Ann Laura Stoler and Karen Strassler, ‘Castings for the Colonial: Memory Work in “New Order” Java’, Comparative Studies in Society and History, 42(1) (January 2000), 4–48. Adrian Vickers, ‘Reopening Old Wounds: Bali and the Indonesian Killings – A Review Article’, Journal of Asian Studies, 57(3) (August 1998), 774–85. See John Pemberton, On The Subject of ‘Java’ (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1994). The term Supersemar derives from the acronym for ‘Executive letter of 11 March’ ‘Surat Perintah Sebelas Maret’, but implicit in the acronym is the word ‘Semar’. According to Paul Stange, Semar is the founding ancestor and chief guardian spirit of the ethnic Javanese. He is in fact the quintessential symbol of Javanese identity. It was with Semar that Suharto most closely identified. Michel Foucault, ‘On Power’, in Lawrence D. Kritzman, ed., Politics, Philosophy, Culture. Interviews and Other Writings, ed. (New York: Routledge, 1988), p. 103. Michel-Rolph Trouillot, Silencing the Past: Power and the Production of History (Boston: Beacon Press, 1995), pp. 28–9. Confidential interview with M’bak ‘Dewi’, 25 August 1996, Klaten, Central Java. E. H. Carr, What is History (Ringwood, Victoria: Penguin, 1961), p. 134. Ibid., p. 155. Ibid., p. 149.

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33 Paula Hamilton, ‘The Knife-edge: Debates About Memory and History’, in Kate Darian-Smith and Paula Hamilton, eds. Memory and History in Twentieth Century Australia (Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1994), p. 14. 34 See Jan Vansina, ‘Oral Tradition: A Study in Historical Methodology’ (Ringwood, Victoria: Penguin, 1973). Originally published in 1961 as De la Traditional Orale: Essai de Methode Historique in Annales du Musee Royal de l’Afrique Centrale 1961, it was one of the first methodical analysis of the oral tradition as the most available source for the reconstruction of the past in preliterate societies. 35 Langer, Admitting the Holocaust, p. 11. 36 Ibid., p. 3. 37 Ibid., p. 7. 38 Ibid. 39 Ibid., p. 26. 40 Ibid., p. 7. 41 Edward Casey, Remembering: A Phenomenological Study (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1987), pp. 1–2. 42 Indeed the case for compensation for Indonesian former ‘comfort women’ ( jugun ianfu) is still ongoing, with funds allegedly ‘tied up’ in the private ‘Asian Women’s Fund’. See ‘Ganti Rugi Bagi Jugun Ianfu Masih di Jepang’, Bernas, 6 August 1997. 43 A secondary debate arose out of the airing of two locally produced TV ‘talk shows’ – ‘Buah Bibir’ and ‘Potret’. This debate centred on issues of paternalism in Javanese culture. See ‘GKR Hemas: Harga Diri Terganggu Sebabkan Lelaki Lakukan Kekerasan’, Kedaulatan Rakyat, 4 August 1997 and ‘GKR Hemas Setuju Penayangan Buah Bibir dan Potret’, Bernas, Senin, 4 August 1997. 44 An example of this is Norma Sullivan, Masters and Managers: A Study of Gender Relations in Urban Java (Sydney: Allen and Unwin, 1994), pp. 96–8. 45 According to Dewi Ratnawulan both cases were sensationalised by the media for instant mass consumption because of their ‘commercial value’. See for instance, ‘Kasus Perkosaan Keluarga Acan: Jakarta Menangis’, Kompas 23 July 1995. Further, although a disparate group of woman’s rights activists was convened under the banner of ‘APAK’ – ‘Aliansi Perempuan Anti-Kekerasan’ – the debate instantly degenerated into a media circus which focused on issues of law and order, crime and punishment, rather than on the structural issues of women in society or indeed on other issues associated with violence. While not an exception to this, according to Dewi, the ‘one bright spot’ was the national campaign of public demonstrations on 5 August 1995 called ‘Dekonstruksi Mythos Malam’, which sought to bring to the government’s attention that it was not only the streets that were unsafe for women, but their homes and places of work as well. To follow this particular case see, ‘Para Pelaku Masih Diburu’, Kompas 26 July 1995; Mulyana W. Kusumah, ‘Hukuman bagi Pelaku Perkosaan’, Kompas 31 July 1995, and ‘Derita Keluarga Acan, Tanggung Jawab Siapa’, Kompas 30 July 1995. 46 Interview with Dewi Ratnawulana, Gadjah Mada University, 17 August 1997. 47 ‘Gambaran Murni Perempuan, Bila Dianggap Ibu’, Kedaulatan Rakyat,_Minggu, 3 August 1997. 48 Ashadi Siregar, ‘Perjuangan Kartini, Ideology Kekerasan dan Perempuan’, Kedaulatan Rakyat, 31 July 1997, pp. 8 and 15. See also a book review by UGM student, Gandung Indarto, ‘Mengupas Kesenjangan Social’, in Bernas, 10 August 1997, p. 3, concerning the book by Revrisond Baswir, Agenda Ekonomi Kerakyatan (Yogyakarta: Pustaka Pelajar, 1997). The staff reporter for Kedaulatan Rakyat, for instance, also took the opportunity to write about other issues such as the ‘social gap’ (kesenjangan sosial ) commenting that ‘in the 52nd year of Indonesian Independence most women still suffer from a life long inheritance of poverty, ignorance and inadequate diet, relative to women of affluence’.

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49 It is interesting to note that Siregar carefully provided government censors with a rather painless first paragraph.[0] It was ‘well known’ for instance that government censors usually only read the headlines of newspaper articles during the New Order period. Occasionally they would scan over the first paragraph. In this way highly sensitive issues could be raised, or rather ‘buried’ in the middle or at the end of the text, thus escaping the consequences of official scrutiny. Controversial headlines usually lead to a brief but succinct telephone call from a senior member of the Department of Information – ‘Bapak tidak Senang’, Father/Sir/Mr. is not happy’). Interview with Pak Parakitri, senior Gramedia journalist, Jakarta, 29 August 1996. 50 Directed by Ahmad Yudi. 51 ‘Sanggar Garasi: Tampilkan Repertoar Carousel’, Kedaulatan Rakyat_, 1 August 1997, p. 11. 52 See Ed Aspinal, ‘What Happened before the Riots’, Inside Indonesia, No. 48 October–December 1996, pp. 4–8. 53 Program guide, ‘Sitor Sang Troubador’, Pemandu Acara: B. Rahmanto. Published by Basis, August 1997. 54 As moderator, B. Rahmanto called for questions. The question in question was actually asked by me after a long period of silence from the audience. I began by saying that I was ‘only a foreigner who knew absolutely nothing about Indonesia, but that I was curious about why Sitor had an eleven-year period of inactivity’. The question further asked: ‘was this a result of a lack of “inspiration” or was he rather “resting”’? The question was sufficiently oblique as to give Sitor the opportunity to avoid it if he wished. The reason for the ‘inactivity’ was of course that Sitor was imprisoned by the New Order after the 30 September coup. Rahmanto looked visibly nervous but quickly lightened up, obviously grateful for Sitor’s tact and candour. 55 Agnes Yani Sardjono, Ojo Dumeh: Kesaksian Kali Winongo (Yogyakarta: Yayasan Pustaka Nusatama, 1997). While this is certainly not the first treatment of ‘Petrus’ in popular literature, it is, nevertheless, ‘a significant literary contribution’. Interview with B. Rahmanto, Sanata Dharma University, 19 August 1997. See also the book review of Ojo Dumeh by Gangung Indarto, ‘Peringatan Bagi Penguasa’, Bernas_, 10 August 1997, p. 3. 56 Stoler and Strassler, ‘Castings for the colonial’.

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5 REMEMBERING AND FORGETTING AT ‘LUBANG BUAYA’ The ‘coup’ of 1965 in contemporary Indonesian historical perception and public commemoration Klaus H. Schreiner

Introduction On the 33rd anniversary of the bloody events of 30 September 1965, famously known by the stigmatising acronym ‘GESTAPU’,1 the Indonesian daily Suara Pembaruan reported that the usual broadcasting of the semi-documentary film Pengkhianatan G30S (The Treason of the 30 September Movement) had been cancelled. The motion picture, produced in 1981 by the National Film Company (PFN), was replaced with the film Bukan Sekadar Kenangan (Not Just a Remembrance) rendering the story of a young woman whose marriage is cancelled because her father is suspected of supporting a Communist group. Searching for the reasons for the sudden refusal, she finally finds out that her bridegroom’s aunt went insane because she saw her husband being tortured to death by communists.2 This report sheds some light both on the recent changes in Indonesian political culture and its apparently (still) unalterable elements. The cancellation of the film about the events some thirty years ago marks a departure from a culture of memory that focused on Suharto and the saviours of the state ideology Pancasila. The plot of the substitute, however, indicates how strong anti-Communism in postSuharto Indonesia still is and how much support it can muster in the political struggle.3 As Indonesia is distancing itself from the period of Suharto’s authoritarian rule, the young generation begins to ask questions about its past. Those Indonesians who witnessed the rise to power of the little-known general Suharto begin to remember and to recall past events. New testimonies appear nearly every day and speculations about the past are mushrooming. It is evident that Indonesian society did not completely change after the demise of Suharto. The political culture and the ensuing system of governance of the 57

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New Order still strongly influence Indonesian society. The first signals of a new willingness to confront the events and developments of the past thirty years are, however, already visible. Particularly noteworthy is the public debate about the historic role of the deposed President Suharto, which gained wide media coverage in autumn 1998.4 Equally remarkable, however, is the fact that the current discussion nearly exclusively deals with the circumstances of Suharto’s rise to power, namely the three major events: his involvement in the so-called Untung coup of October 1965, the Supersemar affair of March 1966 in which Suharto seized power from President Sukarno and the circumstances accompanying Sukarno’s death in 1970 while still under house arrest.5 The most incisive and fateful events leading to the establishment of the ‘New Order’ – the mass killings of late 1965 – have only very hesitantly been raised in the recent public debate. Few events like the opening of the victims’ mass graves in Central Java received media coverage.6

Collective memory The debate about the idea of a collective memory starts with works of the French sociologist Maurice Halbwachs.7 Halbwachs, student of another famous French sociologist Emile Durkheim, initially occupied himself with the development of Western European industrial societies at the beginning of the twentieth century. He very soon began to analyse also the problem of a ‘collective memory’ of these societies. In 1925 he published his first study on this topic under the title ‘Les Cadres Sociaux de la Mémoire’ (The Social Conditions of Memory). Starting from the Freudian theory of the memory of the individual, Halbwachs claims that the individual’s social environment influences and shapes his or her capability to remember and to recall. One can summarise the main thesis of Halbwachs as follows: Human beings can remember their history, but they cannot freely choose the circumstances and conditions of their remembering. ‘Collective memory’ is, therefore, according to Halbwachs, ‘the complete stock of memories, a society of each epoch can reconstruct within its present frame of reference.’8 Halbwachs’ theoretical considerations were neglected for many decades. His thoughts gained new attention, only when his second major work on the topic was posthumously published under the title ‘La mémoire collective’ (Collective Memory). The French historian Pierre Nora was one of the first scholars to rediscover Halbwachs’ theories and to apply them to French historical culture. Influenced by the French School of the ‘Annales’, Nora was the rector spiritus and editor of the huge enterprise to inventory and describe ‘sites of memory’ of the French nation. This collective work, involving several dozen French historians, itself presents a monumental evidence of what Nora analyses in the introductory chapter of the inventory.9 Nora’s extensive general introduction to the first volume of ‘Les Lieux de Mémoire’, titled ‘Between Memory and History’ 58

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represents the most important source for an understanding of his idea of ‘sites of memory’.10

‘Sites of memory’ At the beginning Nora states that the terms ‘history’ and ‘memory’ cannot be used synonymously, for they denote two separate and even opposite domains of man’s perception of the past. He draws up a long list of characteristics that one can summarise in two sentences: ‘Memory is life’, whereas ‘History is the […] reconstruction of what is no longer.’11 Whereas ‘memory’ is closely linked to the present of man and his or her society, history is exclusively concerned with the past. Nora discovers a tendency of modern societies to establish ‘sites of memory’. These are localities – ‘in all meanings of the word’, as Nora emphasises12 – which incite our remembering. Borrowing the term loci memoriae from classical mnemotechnique13 he labels those places – artefacts, monuments, rituals and festivities – ‘lieux de mémoire’ (‘sites of memory’) that are capable of stimulating acts of recollection. This recollection is, however, no living memory any longer, for it does not reside within the society and within its individual members. It is a remembering from without, an incentive triggering recollections and perceptions of things from the outside. The disappearance of memory creates ‘sites of memory’. As Nora writes: The less memory is experienced from within, the greater is the need for external props and tangible reminders of that which no longer exists except qua memory – hence the obsession with the archive that marks an age and in which we attempt to preserve not only all of the past but all of the present as well.14 Creating such sites of memory is a reaction to an increasing and accelerating disappearance of memory and, finally, even to its complete loss. The reason for this eventual loss, according to Nora, is the impact of modernisation on European societies. Nonetheless, although he focuses his investigation on French history and society, one can assume that he would discover similar trends and processes in other societies as well. He certainly intended his work ‘Les Lieux de Mémoire’ to serve as material for comparative research into other European societies.15 Assuming that capitalist modernisation is – to a greater or lesser extent – nowadays affecting virtually all societies in the world, one could suppose that analogous processes can be observed in many societies in the so-called developing countries. Nora explicitly refers to these societies as those ‘only recently roused from their ethnological slumber by the rape of colonization’,16 when he claims, that societies based on memory are no more: the institutions that once transmitted values from generation to generation … have ceased to function as they once did. And ideologies based on memory have ceased to 59

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function as well … . The ‘acceleration of history’ thus brings us face to face with the enormous distance that separates real memory – the kind of inviolate social memory that primitive and archaic societies embodied, and whose secret died with them – from history, which is how modern societies organise a past they are condemned to forget because they are driven by change.17 Nora identifies ‘globalization, democratization and the advent of mass culture and the media’18 as the main causes of the fundamental change. In Europe one can observe the results of this process, but its beginnings are already visible in societies like Indonesia. Rapid economic growth, dissolution of traditional structures, new patterns of working relations, and global economic integration are destroying traditional modes of a living memory. In such a situation of deficiency it becomes increasingly important to create places and opportunities, not only to store memory, but to preserve artefacts, to protect monuments and landscapes and to pass on rituals and patterns of behaviour that embody the capability of provoking and stimulating acts of common remembering. Rapid change in society and culture creates uncertainty that in turn provokes a desire for orientation and ordering an increasingly irritating environment. The feeling of deprivation, of losing grip on the passing aspects of one’s life produces a tendency to save all those items that can impart a sense of security and meaningfulness.19 The transformation of the living, the ‘true memory’ – as Nora calls it – into a ‘modern memory’ results in a memory of archives, museums and historical storehouses. They contain all sorts of remains and vestiges that – in whatever distant way – seem to have a commemorative or even sentimental value: Lieux de mémoire arise out of a sense that there is no such thing as spontaneous memory, hence that we must create archives, mark anniversaries, organise celebrations, pronounce eulogies, and authenticate documents because such things not longer happen as a matter of course.20 The rapidity of change and the ‘acceleration of history’ (Nora) put a distance between people and their life histories. Thus, memory’s range becomes steadily smaller and seems to cover only the immediate past. Consequently, man begins to set up places where he can bridge this gap and get in touch again with his past. These are the ‘sites of memory’. What do ‘sites of memory’ look like and how can one identify them? Pierre Nora did not see much sense in giving a full theoretical account or a tightly and welldesigned definition of ‘lieux de mémoire’. He plays with all the facets and connotations of the term to arrive at a concept as comprehensive as possible. He writes: Lieux de mémoire are complex things. At once natural and artificial, simple and ambiguous, concrete and abstract, they are lieux – places, sites, causes – in three senses: material, symbolic, and functional.21 60

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All places in the proper sense of the word belong to the first category: battlefields, monuments, buildings and so on. The second group may comprise charters, constitutions and the like, while the third one refers to distinct and prescribed patterns of behaviour and rituals. If one takes them at their face value, one will not be able to gain any insight into their true characteristics. It is the dimension that transcends the material, object-like form of these places that is of real interest. Only if one studies what people read into these places, can one open up the invested and symbolic meanings of these sites. One of the elements which must be taken into account while studying such sites, therefore, is the existence of the ‘intent to remember’.22 Only by way of remembering, will the site – in whatever kind of appearance it occurs – be reinvigorated, be given life, because ‘memory is life’, as Nora states. If there is no such intention, there is no memory, but only lifeless history. Nora looks for an applicable and useful frame of reference to study the history of the representations of the past, the history of the symbolic meanings of such objects and places and their changes.23 The ‘Monument of the Seven Heroes’ (Monumen Tujuh Pahlawan) at ‘Lubang Buaya’, which I discuss in this chapter, is intriguing as a ‘site of memory’ because of its symbolic value and the meaning acquired during more than three decades. Whereas the actual places and artefacts may remain unaltered, the meaning arising from them will change with the people making use of them as a stimulus for their reminiscence. The contents of ‘sites of memory’ changes according to the contemporaneous frame of reference. According to Nora, this characteristic, which Halbwachs had already emphasised in regard to the collective memory, is the innate capacity of ‘lieux de mémoire’: […] it is also clear that lieux de mémoire thrive only because of their capacity for change, their ability to resurrect old meanings and generate new ones along with new and unforeseeable connections.24 ‘Sites of memory’ are located on the border between a society with its individuals and a past that is now extant only in archival form. They represent the connecting link between the memory of people, who are prone to lose touch with the past, and history itself. Nora is interested in the historical and societal conditions that shape the perception of the past. ‘Lieux de mémoire’ are the specific places where historical consciousness is generated. Referring to both Freud and Proust, Nora has pointed out the important consequences resulting from the transformation of memory during the last century. He notes: This transformation of memory marks a decisive shift from the historical to the psychological, from the social to the individual, from the concrete message to its subjective representation, from repetition to remembrance. Memory became a private affair.25 61

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Though one should not yield up the area of historical research to psychology or psychoanalysis, the development of memory and consequently the perception of history calls for an integration of complementary concepts in historical research. For memory emerged as ‘something central to individual identity’26 the individual increasingly demands the attention of the historian. Memory influences the behaviour of the individual and consequently shapes his relation to the past and thus also the future. At this connecting point non-historical concepts can provide assistance to understand both the individual and the social dimensions of history and its interdependence.

Trauma The concept of trauma has made its way from medicine through psychiatry and psychoanalysis into history and other humanities. The term originally denoted an organic or physical wound without implying a psychological connotation. However, modern usage of the word frequently denotes the psychic state of a person after suffering such an injury. The term was then further extended to include the response to terrible events which did not necessarily cause physical harm to the person concerned. The term ‘trauma’ has become a widely applied category in research on the Holocaust and in attempts to understand the various modes of memory and repression. As there is no clear-cut and undisputed definition of this term, it appears to be necessary and useful at least to narrow down its field of significance. Freud described as traumatic any excitations from outside which are powerful enough to break through the protective shield [Reizschutz]. It seems to me that the concept of trauma necessarily implies a connection of this kind with a breach in an otherwise efficacious barrier against stimuli. Such an event as an external trauma is bound to provoke a disturbance on a large scale in the functioning of the organism’s energy and to set in motion every possible defense measure.27 This general description, stressing the violent and intrusive character of traumatic experiences, illuminates the trauma’s consequences for a person’s perception of his or her past and the way to deal with it in the present. All scholars using the term in the Freudian sense agree upon the trauma’s overwhelming impact on the victim and the resulting incapability of integrating this encountering and the related emotions into daily life. In continuation of Freud’s interpretation of history as a ‘history of traumata’, Peter Loewenberg has pointed out some reasons to use psychoanalytical concepts in historical research, because they help to understand ‘the subjective dimensions of historical life as cultural constructions.’28 Regarding the present subject he argues: The trauma is the theoretical link between individual and group, cohort, population, state and world. Accordingly this is the starting point for 62

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historical research and its categories for an understanding of groups and institutions […]29 The actions and perceptions of the individual are inseparably linked to society and the material world. Human history is an interdependent process connecting these two spheres, the dimensions of the individual and the society. Therefore, it is necessary to look for concepts that can help to explain their causal inter-relatedness. Beyond these general characteristics there are some more specific features of the concept of traumatic experiences that seem to be particularly stimulating for a historical and historiographical analysis. Examining Freud’s essay ‘Moses and Monotheism’, Cathy Caruth demonstrates that Freud’s reading of Jewish history establishes it as a simultaneously continuous and interrupted process. She writes: [In this rethinking of Jewish beginnings, then,] the future is no longer continuous with the past but is united with it through a profound discontinuity. The exodus from Egypt that shapes the meaning of the Jewish past is a departure that is both a radical break and the establishment of a new history.30 Trauma then marks a deep interruption in an individual’s life story or society’s history, but it represents the beginning of new history that is linked with the experience of that very event. The trauma is the interruption of history and the continuation of the past into the present. A catastrophic event is an extreme instance of discontinuity. Such events usually mark a turning-point in one’s life story and create the paradoxical perception that one is no longer the same person, and yet still the same person. Alessandro Cavalli explains: Personal identity depends on the subject’s capability of recognising himself as the same person, even after broad changes affecting both the physical and/or the psychological foundations.31 This paradox is a fundamental characteristic of human existence and its confrontation with sudden changes in the life story. The forming of personal identity is a continual process. Moreover, trauma has another important function for the memory of the respective person or society. Dealing with various modes and forms of memory, Aleida Assmann has suggested the differentiation between a ‘functional memory’ (Funktionsgedächtnis) and a storage-memory (Speichergedächtnis) which are not mutually exclusive but complementary modes of memory: The depth structure of memory with its interchange between actualised and non-actualised elements presents the condition of possibility for change and renewal in the structure of consciousness that would ossify without the background of this amorphous reserve.32 63

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The unconscious memory constitutes the storage-memory. It is shapeless and unorganised. It contains those issues and pieces of memory that are not actually forgotten, but also not currently referred to or used. Nevertheless, it is constantly open to actualisation by any kind of sensation. This storage-memory provides the background and the reservoir of its counterpart the organised, structured and selective functional memory. Its task is to create meaningfulness by combining, marshalling and interpreting the various perceptions and emotions. In her continuing analysis of memorial modes, Assmann has also investigated the conditions under which memory is upheld. She suggests three media that stabilise memory: affect, symbol and trauma. She argues that the traumatic event is so violent and extreme that the inflicted person is incapable of an integral constitution of herself. In this kind of event, […] the trauma stabilises an experience that is not accessible for the consciousness and that resides in the shadow of this consciousness as a latent presence.33 The excessive force and violence of the very experience are a fundamental obstacle to overcome the psychic injury inflicted by the event. The trauma lives within the person without being expressed and dealt with. This is the paradox of the situation that Michael S. Roth points at: If the trauma is unforgettable, then it is paradoxically so, because it could not be remembered, not be re-narrated. As soon as it becomes part of the historical consciousness, it may gradually fade away.34 However, there are strategies to cope with this persistent presence of trauma. Jean-François Lyotard’s observation about the function of monuments is very important in this respect. Similarly to Assmann, he notes the stabilising effect of trauma. He then argues that only those items can be forgotten that have somehow been recorded, because these records can be erased. What never has been inscribed also may never be forgotten, because it is not accessible to forgetfulness. Continuing this argumentation Assmann concludes: Monuments are for him [Lyotard] ‘representations’ and as such they serve as a relief for the memory, thus in truth: as strategies of forgetting. […] What has been fixed, can also be extinguished; however, what never acquired the form of a sign, of a rememberable symbol can, according to Lyotard, therefore not be denied or forgotten.35 It is important to note that both Assmann and Lyotard have stressed the stabilising character of trauma. It keeps the human being in an immovable inertia that 64

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prohibits the overcoming and the forgetting. As it cannot be narrated, it cannot be spoken about.36 Assmann writes: [Trauma, that is the impossibility of narration.] Trauma and symbol are opposed to each other in a mutually exclusive way; the physical force and the constructive sense appear to be the polar extremes between which our memories are moving.37 The person remains in the numbness of the trauma unable to deal with it. It is constantly and inaccessibly present without being integrated or forgotten.

Taboo Following its Austronesian etymology, the word ‘taboo’ is generally understood to denote something ‘dangerous’ or ‘impure’. It refers both to objects of material culture and to specific topics in a society’s existence. The primary purpose of a taboo is to protect these items, for they are banned from the public, and one must not touch them – neither literally nor figuratively. ‘Taboo’ can therefore be understood as the unconditional order to maintain this ban.38 Anybody breaking such a taboo will be punished according to the ethical and moral code which in turn depends on the contents of the taboo and its cultural settings. Each society possesses a set of particular taboos and the necessary mechanisms to maintain them. The existence of common taboos results in conformity and creates a ‘community of the obedient’.39 Rudas then concludes: ‘Taboo means obeying without questioning.’40 He also admits that the existence of such collective rules and their observance is necessary for the functioning of any society. Knowledge about a society’s taboos and the necessary rules to enforce them can help to explain the inner workings of a society. In the context of violent historical events, which – as I have suggested – can be understood as a trauma, I want to point out one aspect that stresses the dual character of a violent traumatic past and its remembrance in the present. More often than not, the memory of such violence is completely repressed or only certain features of these incidents are admitted to the public sphere and discussed. In this regard Anton Pelinka made the most interesting point that the creation of a taboo plays a constitutive role for a society’s political culture: Taboos assist in construing a political culture. Heroic persons, heroic achievements, and heroic events become mystified, because a subtle and precise analysis is deliberately omitted. The heroic serves as the embodiment of a certain value system that in turn enforces patterns of behaviour. The inevitable negative aspects of the heroic are thereby being made a taboo.41 The ideology of the dominant group bans the negative and undesirable aspects of history into the realm of taboo, the breach of which is sanctioned both 65

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juridically and socially. I mention this idea of taboo as part of political culture because it may help us to understand the following case study from recent Indonesian history.

‘Lubang Buaya’ – a site of memory During the Suharto years much of the mainstream historical research and historiography contributed to ideologically stabilising the regime by constructing historical proofs of its legitimacy.42 Therefore Indonesian historiography has hardly dealt with the mass killings in Indonesia of 1965–6. The most prominent exception is the publication of the Centre for the Indonesian Armed Forces’ History and Tradition compiled by Nugroho Notosusanto and Ismail Saleh. It is an extended version of a preliminary report which Nugroho had published already some forty days after the generals’ kidnapping.43 In 1994 the State Secretariat published a ‘White Book’ on the history of the Indonesian Communist movement since its beginnings in the early 1920s. It places the events of 1965 in a comprehensive historical framework. The explicit purpose, as the State Secretary Moerdiono stated in his preface, was to enforce the national assembly’s decree of 1966 that banned all kinds of communist ideologies in Indonesia.44 Although printed material usually reaches only a very limited audience in Indonesia, visual mass media such as television and film have a much larger range. Only in the early 1980s, which is relatively late, the government turned to this medium to convey its interpretation of the coup. The PFN recruited the well-known Arifin C. Noer as artistic director for the above-mentioned film Pengkhianatan G30S, as well as finding well-known Indonesian actors to play the key roles. The state-owned television company TVRI then broadcast the film on every anniversary of the 1965 events.45 It thus became the primary source of popular knowledge about this historic episode and is the main reference for the post-coup generation in Indonesia.46 As one consequence of political reform, the annual showing of the film was cancelled in 1998 and it was replaced by the film Bukan Sekadar Kenangan. The plot of this film combines two very sensitive and vital issues: the staunch anti-Communism of the Suharto regime and the problem of silencing traumatic experiences within a family. In this film the bridegroom’s aunt is depicted as the victim in two regards: the Communists killed her husband and she became mentally ill because she witnessed the cruel torturing of her husband. Without any doubt, one can consider such encounters a traumatic experience. However, resulting from its biased approach the film focuses on the woman’s suffering, but the victims of the army’s persecution are not put on the centre stage. Edy Sedyawati, Director-General for Culture and one of the initiators of the film, justifies the film’s biased treatment of the historic trauma: This film wants to remember the people to be cautious towards communism, because the PKI has twice revolted against the government of the 66

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Republic of Indonesia, that is in 1948 and in 1965. The victims were innocent people.47 Still, it is noteworthy that the issue of repressive treatment of traumatic experiences is taken up at all, for the silence about the past and making parts of the history a taboo was a prominent feature of political discourse during the Suharto era.

The events of 1 October 1965 – a brief assessment The developments leading to the events which are usually referred to as the coup (and counter-coup) of 30 September 1965 have been the subject of many scholarly investigations and evaluations. The books of Crouch and Sundhaussen, both dealing with military politics in Indonesia, belong to the most comprehensive and balanced studies.48 Robert Cribb has studied the historiographical problems concerning the violence and mass killings in Indonesia during late 1965 until March 1966 in the aftermath of Sukarno’s overthrow.49 A power struggle between the army on the one side and the increasingly influential Indonesian Communist Party (PKI) on the other side characterised Indonesia’s political landscape in the early 1960s. The Indonesian President Sukarno himself sometimes played an active role in this political contest, and sometimes distanced himself from daily politicking to present himself as an allegedly impartial arbitrator. In early 1965 rumours about a so-called council of generals (Dewan Djenderal) were circulating in Jakarta. General Ahmad Yani, then chief of the joint staffs, allegedly presided over this informal group of high-ranking army officers. Given their conservative political convictions, the generals must have been alarmed by Sukarno’s apparently increasing sympathies for the People’s Republic of China and the PKI. The rumours had it that they planned a coup for Armed Forces Day, 5 October 1965. The position of the PKI was strongly dependent on presidential protection. Nevertheless, the party could count on some support from the Indonesian Air Force and a number of younger officers in the army. In August, reports about Sukarno’s deteriorating health alarmed the party leadership. They triggered measures to protect the party and its mass movements in case Sukarno should die and the staunchly anti-Communist army leadership should take over power. Simultaneously, a group of young officers, led by the two colonels of the presidential guard Cakrabirawa, Untung and Abdul Latief, planned to forestall an eventual coup attempt against the president by the council of generals. Consequently, in the early morning hours of 1 October they launched an action to kidnap the supposed members of the generals’ council.50 However, the action failed for a host of reasons. First, some of the generals were killed at the time of their abduction. Moreover Sukarno failed to support the young officers in the hours following the kidnapping, even though they had declared that they were acting for his protection. Additionally, the plan of action seems to have been 67

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poorly thought out and had strategic and tactical shortcomings that made it easy to foil. One major reason for the failure seems to have been that Lieutenant General Suharto, then commander of the strategic reserve KOSTRAD, was not one of the young officers’ targets. Why this was the case remains a mystery and has been the subject of speculation and discussion. He was not considered one of the ‘political’ generals of the rumoured council of generals, but on the other hand he was a conservative and a key military figure in the capital. Both in his testimony before the military court and in recent interviews Latief has stated that he had informed Suharto about the imminent actions.51 Suharto has denied this allegation, but it remains unresolved why he was not on the list of officers to be kidnapped.52 After evaluating the situation in Jakarta, Suharto acted quickly. He was able to bring himself into a position where he could wield sufficient influence among his fellow officers to resist Sukarno’s orders openly, even though the president was still the supreme commander of the Indonesian Armed Forces. The Army openly accused the PKI of being the mastermind (dalang) of the coup. To increase public resentment of the Communists, the army spread false reports that the generals had been tortured and that Communist women had mutilated them by cutting off the men’s genitals. This invented story propped up with rumours about sexual orgies performed at ‘Lubang Buaya’ turned the already tense and frightened atmosphere into anti-Communist hysteria. Soon after the generals’ corpses were discovered and they were buried as ‘National Heroes of the Revolution’ (Pahlawan Revolusi), the first actions against party members and alleged supporters began. According to available sources and witnesses’ reports, the worst persecution occurred in Central and East Java. Other foci of the anti-Communist killings were Bali and North Sumatra. The estimates of the number of people killed vary between 78,000 and one million.53 Cribb has pointed out the difficulties in establishing a realistic estimate of the actual number of victims. A few years after Cribb’s analysis, Sukarno’s former assistant Oei Tjoe Tat published his memoirs. He was a member of the Fact Finding Commission that in 1966 reported the number of 78,000 victims for all three most heavily affected areas. Along with the officially reported findings, he relates a private conversation with a doubting Sukarno who pressed for the true number. According to Oei’s estimates, that figure was 500,000–600,000.54 However, neither the available archival files nor oral testimonies offer any conclusive answer to this question. Though one will probably never convincingly solve the assessment of the number of victims, the regional distribution of the killings seems quite clear. The worst killings happened in Central and East Java where the PKI had its largest strongholds because of the open social conflicts between landless and smallholder peasants on the one hand and mostly santri (pious Muslim) landowners on the other hand. The perpetrators were not only regular troops – many civilians, predominantly members of the Muslim youth organisation Ansor, were also actively involved.55 The army very often provided tactical and moral support in the form of weaponry and by ideological legitimisation of the killings. 68

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The factual reasons for this violence are complex and very often depend on local conditions. Social tensions were one major trigger in many cases. Most of the killings occurred between early October, when the false reports about the events at ‘Lubang Buaya’ infuriated the public, and March 1966, when Suharto allegedly obtained from Sukarno a formal authorisation (Supersemar) to take over executive government.56 By the time Suharto issued the formal decree in March 1966 banning the PKI, most of the killings had already been committed. During the following months killings were still going on, however, on a lower scale. In 1966 the new regime under Suharto established an extraordinary military court (Mahmillub). There it staged trials of the main actors of the abortive pro-Sukarno operation, the army colonels Untung and Latief, as well as their counterparts in the PKI, Njoto and Sjam. Furthermore, some prominent members of Sukarno’s last cabinet, namely the Foreign Secretary Subandrio and the air force chief of staff Omar Dhani were tried. The PKI Secretary General D.N. Aidit was shot by a special unit which had traced him to a hideout in Central Java. After the first lethal purge of the PKI and the affiliated organisations in late 1965, a wave of arrests swept over the country. Hundreds of thousands of political prisoners were arrested and punished according to the degree of their alleged or even actual involvement. Thus, during the first month, most of the witnesses were either killed or their testimonies were suppressed by arrest and intimidation.

‘Lubang Buaya’ as a ‘site of memory’ While the killings in 1966 and 1967 were still going on, the junta had already begun to substantiate its rule in the ideological sphere. A fierce struggle for the enormous symbolic potency of the generals’ death broke out between Sukarno’s and Suharto’s groups immediately after the incidents. Sukarno was hampered from the start by suspicions that he might have encouraged or even masterminded the coup which was, after all, undertaken in his name and with the ostensible aim of protecting him from the generals. At first Sukarno attempted to salvage his power by refuting these suspicions. In an effort to strengthen his position, he claimed that the dead soldiers were martyrs of the ‘Indonesian Revolution’, of which he was the ‘Great Leader’. On the eve of their funerals, Sukarno hastily issued a decree awarding the victims the title ‘Pahlawan Revolusi’ (Hero of the Revolution).57 However, Sukarno’s Guided Democracy rhetoric claiming Yani and the others for his and the revolution’s cause could not convince his enemies within the army, let alone win them over. Suharto extended and strengthened his power-base within the Armed Forces and was eventually able to wrest executive powers from the ailing president. Simultaneously he could already exploit the murdered generals’ symobolic value for his purposes.58 In 1966 he commissioned a memorial on the spot where the victims had been found dumped in a well. ‘Lubang Buaya’ (Crocodile Hole), the site of an ordinary little banana grove on the capital’s outskirts, became the central shrine of the ‘New Order’.59 69

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The army turned the deserted place into a large memorial, which initially consisted of three main elements. There was a spacious plaza to hold ceremonies (lapangan upacara) and, not far from that square, a huge monument, the ‘Tugu Monumen Pancasila Sakti’ (Monument to the Sacred Pancasila), featured the giant statues of the seven soldiers.60 A mammoth Garuda (mythological eagle) overshadowed the whole scene. A bas-relief presenting the story of the events leading up to the actual murder covered the massive pentagonal pedestal, itself a symbol of the state ideology, Pancasila.61 Between these two places, only a few metres away from the monument, one found a modest structure designed like a traditional Javanese pavilion ( pendopo). It consisted of a domed roof and a tiled floor. At its square centre, one saw a simple hole in the naked soil: the famous well. Some years after the opening of the monument proper, the Centre for History and Tradition of the Armed Forces added two educational installations. A little wooden hut, a replica of the original shelter that stood there close to the well, which houses a diorama displaying bloody scenes of the generals being tortured and humiliated by communist youth.62 This kind of presentation, typical of the static features of New Order political culture, is also predominant in the main building that houses a collection of thirtytwo dioramas about the many treacherous acts of the Communist movement since the ‘Peristiwa Tiga Daerah’ in 1945 (Three Regions Affair).63 The dioramas in the neighbouring ‘Museum Pancasila Sakti’ focus on the various episodes directly connected with the actual events.64 In the third complex the visitors can view collections of historical photographs and an exhibition of the heroes’ relics. Personal belongings, letters, uniforms and blood-stained clothing are on display. This museum reflects perfectly the ideology of anti-Communism in Indonesia since the very beginnings of the independent states. It hides away the controversial interpretation of history in favour of a biased but authoritative version – the undebatable fundamental of political correctness.

Concluding comments Nora has emphasised the point, that functional ‘sites of memory’ (rituals, ceremonies, commemorations and so on) and topographical ones (monuments, cemeteries, museums and so on) emerge at those times and in such places where there is a break with the past – either perceived or construed.65 They identify those intersections of individual and social life stories that mark their discontinuity. ‘Lubang Buaya’ combines the topographical and the functional aspects of Nora’s ‘sites of memory’ concept. The monument and the neighbouring installations occupy the very site where a new order came into existence. The death – or in the language of New Order ideology – the sacrifice of the soldiers occurring at this place marks the genesis of the ‘New Order’ and characterises it as the birthplace of the ‘New Order’. The violent traumatic events accompanying its emergence mark the break with the preceding history of Sukarno’s Guided Democracy 70

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and the foregoing period of liberal democracy. On the other hand, the aspects of continuity are present in the veneration of the Pancasila as the protective ideological mantra. Though this implies a radical change of exegesis, the Pancasila still serves as the link joining the ‘New Order’ to the mythological origins of the Indonesian independence struggle. It can thus safeguard the continuance of the Indonesian nation’s identity.66 Monument and museums turn the place into the centrepiece of the new political universe. As symbolic centre and topographical ‘site of memory’ ‘Lubang Buaya’ becomes the theatre of the memorial sites’ functional dimensions. It is the place to perform the newly conceived rituals, ‘which are indispensable to maintain and strengthen a newly established authority.’67 From 1967, Suharto and the highest representatives of his ‘New Order’ annually performed the ceremonies of the ‘Remembrance Day of Pancasila’s Magic Power’ (Hari Peringatan Kesaktian Pancasila)68 to commemorate the birth of the ‘New Order’. The murdered soldiers are considered the ‘saints’ of a new order in Indonesia. The performed rituals are very simple. They mainly consist of the recitation of the ideologically most important texts of the ‘New Order’: the Pancasila itself, the preamble of the Constitution of 1945, and the ‘oath of resoluteness to defend the Pancasila and carry it out with devotion’.69 The ritual’s design and its liturgical elements remained unchanged until the end of the Suharto era. Though the ceremonial itself appeared to be rather unpretentious, it gained increasing ritual importance, as Purdy notes in her analysis of this memorial day. Over the years a growing number of government functionaries and high-ranking generals took part in the event. The authorities commanded representatives of an expanding spectrum of societal groups and parties, as well as of scouts’, women’s and veterans’ associations to participate in the ceremony at ‘Lubang Buaya’.70 The ‘Monument for the Seven Heroes’ and the adjacent museums have a twofold purpose. On the one hand the monument serves as a constant reminder of the threat originating from Communism and as a token of Pancasila’s strength and invincibility. The meaningfulness of the generals’ ‘sacrifice’71 does not end, though, with the salvation of Pancasila from the chaos of the old order. They are actually considered to be the progenitors of a new order, as they are the ancestors acting in the ‘New Order’s’ myth of origin, as Leclerc rightly notes.72 The monument at ‘Lubang Buaya’ in its present form, however, only commemorates the permissible aspects of the past. Regarding the negative and repugnant dimensions, that are repressed, though always present, it acquires a different function. Lyotard has analysed monuments as a means to relinquish memory.73 The monument becomes the ‘dumping site’ of recollections, and of the negative and unwanted parts of it in particular. There the society can safely store them away, so that they cannot haunt it any longer.74 Thus ‘Lubang Buaya’ serves as a ‘site of memory’ for the admissible aspects of history and as the place of relief of history’s negative aspects. As a conceptual approach I have suggested to look upon ‘heroisation’ on the one hand, and stigmatisation and repression, on the other hand, as two aspects of 71

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the same process of remembering and forgetting. The very specific Indonesian version of the ‘myth of the stab in the back’ characterises the historical and ideological background of this process.75 In the Indonesian ideological setting anti-Communism serves as a medium for heroisation, which on the other hand calls for stigmatisation of the negative aspects. Stigmatisation was not only a prerequisite for the unimpeded and unpunished killings. Stigmatisation deprives the victims of their human dignity and fosters the forgetting. The victims and their suffering fall into oblivion. Anti-Communism was still very influential even in the era of ‘reformasi’ as the film Bukan Sekadar Kenangan shows. The Communists and their ideology still figure as the embodiment of evil. The film suggests the need for constant alertness against a potential threat from that side. The dominance of this ideological mainstream partly explains the fact that only Suharto, as individual historical actor, and his personal rule came under scrutiny during the years immediately after his loss of office. The reform movement did not seriously challenge either the system created during the ‘New Order’ or its ideological foundations. After his fall, Suharto served as the screen for projections and as an ideal scapegoat for all feelings of guilt. Many persons who actively participated in the killings could conceal their own involvement by accusing Suharto of being a collaborator or even a secret member of the PKI. Remarkably, the stigma that was used to wipe out thousands and thousands of people came to be used in a reverse way. In any case, it still proved to be a dangerous political weapon. Accordingly, heroisation and stigmatisation shape the agenda of remembering and forgetting. An important feature of ‘sites of memory’ is ‘to generate new ones [meanings] along with new and unforeseeable connections.76 Whereas the form and design of these sites may remain unaltered, people will interpret the re-presented history anew under changing political conditions. The Suharto government turned an inconspicuous place on the outskirts of Jakarta into the central shrine of the ‘New Order’ and its variety of civil religion. Now after this regime has been ousted, ‘Lubang Buaya’ will continue to serve as a nucleus where changing and – eventually – conflicting perceptions of the past will crystallise.

Notes 1 ‘GESTAPU’ combines initials and some other letters of the expression ‘Gerakan September Tiga Puluh’. The word order is forced and contravenes the syntactic rules of Indonesian grammar in order to create the allusion to the German term GESTAPO (Geheime Staatspolizei), the Nazi political police. While ‘Gestapu’ was the label used by the Suharto faction, Sukarno usually referred to the event as ‘GESTOK’ (Gerakan Satu Oktober, Movement of 1 October). 2 Suara Pembaruan Daily on-line 30 Sept. 1998: ‘“Bukan Sekadar Kenangan” Pengganti Film “Pengkhianatan G30S/PKI”’. Jonggi Sihombing directed the film, which was commissioned by the General Directorate for Culture of the Ministry for Education and Culture. 3 In spring 2001 Islamic groups labelling themselves Aliansi Anti-Komunis warned bookshops in major cities of Indonesia to remove allegedly communist and leftist books from their shelves and announced that they would publicly burn such books.

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4 See, for example, DëTAK and Adil special issues of the first week in October 1998. 5 There was a broad discussion in the Indonesian media as to whether Sukarno really died of kidney failure or whether his death was hastened by a failure to provide medical assistance. A press conference of Sukarno’s widow, Ratna Dewi Sari, accusing Suharto of responsibility for Sukarno’s death, triggered this public debate. 6 ‘Pembongkaran Kuburan Massal Korban Peristiwa G30S.’ Kompas 13 December 2000. 7 Born in 1877, murdered in a German concentration camp in 1944. 8 Halbwachs (1985: 390). 9 It seems to be an example of the ‘obsession’ to make an inventory of and save in a storehouse every item of history. 10 Nora (1996: 3); for the convenience of readers, English translations of quotations from Nora (1984) are taken from Nora (1996), even though the translation is not always satisfactory. 11 Nora (1996: 3). 12 Nora (1990: 7). 13 He refers to Frances A. Yates, The Art of Memory (London: Routledge and Paul, 1966); according to classical mnemotechnique, an orator should link every idea of his speech to a distinct place or object in his house. He then produces an inventory of these items, the ‘loci memoriae’ that help him to recall his ideas. 14 Nora (1996: 8). 15 Nora (1990: 9); see also Große-Kracht (1996: 29). 16 Nora (1996: 1). 17 Nora (1996: 2). 18 Nora (1996: 1). 19 Nora (1996: 8): ‘The fear that everything is on the verge of disappearing, coupled with anxiety about the precise significance of the present and uncertainty about the future, invests even the humblest testimony, the most modest vestige, with the dignity of being potentially memorable.’ 20 Nora (1996: 7). 21 Nora (1996: 14). 22 Nora (1996: 15). 23 Unfried (1991: 89). 24 Nora (1996: 15). 25 Nora (1996: 11). 26 Ibid. 27 Sigmund Freud, ‘Beyond the Pleasure Principle’, in J. Strachey, ed. and trans., The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works, vol. 18 (London: Hogarth Press 1953–74), p. 29, quoted after Friedlander (1993: 130). Cathy Caruth argues in a similar way: ‘In its most general definition, trauma describes an overwhelming experience of sudden or catastrophic events in which the response to the event occurs in the often delayed, uncontrolled repetitive appearance of hallucinations and other intrusive phenomena.’ See Caruth (1996: 11). 28 Loewenberg (1998: 129). 29 Ibid., p. 128. 30 Caruth (1996: 14). 31 Cavalli (1997: 456). 32 Assmann (1995: 184). 33 Assmann (1998: 148). 34 Roth (1998: 168). 35 Assmann (1998: 149), referring to Jean-François Lyotard’s book, Heidegger and The Jews (Vienna: Passagen, 1988). 36 Ibid., p. 150.

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37 Ibid., p. 151. 38 Rudas (1994: 18); He further argues that magic-oriented societies ban the touching of certain material objects, whereas modern, seemingly less magic-oriented societies ban the discussion of certain topics. 39 Ibid., p. 19. 40 Ibid. 41 Pelinka (1994: 24). 42 See Seminar Sedjarah (1958); Klooster (1985). 43 Notosusanto and Saleh (1987). See also the short article ‘Kegiatan Ilmiah dan “G-30-S”’ (1968), where the tensions between Indonesia and the United States about the so-called ‘Cornell Paper’ are also briefly mentioned. Of course there is a biased and tendentious account of the events in the authoritative Sejarah Nasional Indonesia (Indonesian National History) which was published under the general editorship of the same Nugroho who became Minister of Education after having served as head of the army’s centre for history and tradition. 44 Sekretariat Negara Republik Indonesia (1994), pp. vii–viii; decree TAP-XXV/MPRS/ 1966. 45 Sen (1988: 58). Umar Kayam acted as Sukarno, Amoroso Katamsi as Suharto. See also the interviews with some of the actors and the Arifin’s widow in DëTAK 1, No. 13 (6–12 October 1998), p. 13. 46 When I discussed the topic with some university graduates during a recent visit to ‘Lubang Buaya’, I could observe how efficient this kind of history lesson was. 47 Suara Pembaruan Daily on-line 30 September 1998: ‘“Bukan Sekadar Kenangan” Pengganti Film “Pengkhianatan G30S/PKI”’. 48 Crouch (1978) and Sundhaussen (1982); see also Dahm (1978). 49 Cribb (1990). 50 Lt. Gen. M. Tirtodarmo Harjono, Maj. Gen. Donald Ignatius Pandjaitan, Lt. Gen. Siswondo Parman, Maj. Gen. Sutojo Siswomihardjo, Lt. Gen. Suprapto, Capt. Pierre Tendean, Gen. Ahmad Yani, Pol. Capt. Karel Sadsuit Tubun was also killed that night, but is not included. Brig. Gen. Katamso Dharmokusumo and Col. Sugijono Mangunwidjoto of the Yogyakarta command were killed the same night. However, their corpses were found only on 22 October and interred in Central Java. The only general to escape was A.H. Nasution, who was also regarded as a member of the council. However, his daughter was killed by the kidnappers. 51 See for example Tempo (1998). 52 Suharto’s role in the days before and after the bloody incident is one of the most hotly debated topics in the current situation. It is still not known whether he co-operated with the plotters, whether he just utilised a situation he himself did not actually anticipate, or whether he acted on behalf and in agreement with foreign powers. See, for example, the cover stories of Adil 66, No. 52 (30.9.–6.10.1998) and DëTAK 1, No. 12 (29.19.5.10.1998). Nearly all major magazines and weeklies carried reports on this topic at the time. 53 Cribb (1990: 12), table 1. 54 Oei Tjoe Tat (1995: 192). The book provides the full text of the Fact Finding Commission’s report. The book was banned after its release in April 1995, but nevertheless had its third reprint in August of the same year. 55 Ansor still exists as affiliate of the traditionalist Nahdlatul Ulama. 56 The false reports on torture and on sexual orgies were one important element in the mythologisation of ‘Lubang Buaya’. See Leclerc (1997: 295–303). 57 Usually, various committees had to co-operate in the lengthy process of selection, screening and declaring a ‘National Hero’. However, Sukarno frequently circumvented these regulations whenever he wanted to use a hero declaration as a political instrument.

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58

59 60 61 62

63 64 65 66 67 68

69

70 71

Sukarno’s decree elevating the generals was one of his last acts of this sort. For the production of National Heroes in Indonesia see Schreiner (1997). Suharto forced Sukarno to sign the Supersemar-authorisation of 11 March 1966 which became the basis for the banning of the PKI. In March 1967 Sukarno was deposed and stripped of all his offices and power; Suharto succeeded him as acting president to be officially confirmed as president a year later. For a contemporary account see, for example, Indonesia Raya 2 October 1970 and Kompas 27 September 1970. The monument is also known as the ‘Monument of the Seven Heroes’ (Monumen Tujuh Pahlawan). The five corners symbolise the five principles of the Indonesian state ideology Pancasila; see Leclerc (1997) for a description of the relief and the pertinent interpretation. The official autopsy report states that no traces of torture or maltreatment could be found on the corpses of the soldiers; see Benedict Anderson, ‘How did the generals die?’, Indonesia, 43 (1987), 109–34; Margot Cohen, ‘The Red Menace is Preserved and Well in Java’, Asian Wall Street Journal 20/21 December 1991 gives an ironic, though to-the-point account of the situation. Left-wing nationalists seized local power in the Pekalongan region of Central Java in 1945, shortly after the declaration of independence. On this event, see Lucas (1991). Buku Panduan Monumen Pancasila Sakti Lubang Buaya ([Jakarta]: Pusat Sejarah dan Tradisi ABRI, 1994). Nora (1996: 7). Cavalli (1997). As Kertzer has accurately concluded: ‘In short, the new political order […] must be legitimised through the creation of ritual if its political rule is to be solidified.’ See (1983: 63). Purdy (1984: 230): ‘But the truly unique New Order ritual celebration was to be that which is held on 1 October, […] the ‘Day of the Remembering of the Spiritual Power of Pancasila’. It was proposed in 1967 that a brief ceremony be held annually on the parade grounds of Lubang Buaya, […]’. Berita Yudha 2-10-1969; the ceremony in 1996 consisted of the same elements and was performed by nearly identical functionaries. Media Indonesia 2-10-1996. The ‘oath of resoluteness’ was replaced by the ‘oath of allegiance’ which only means a change in terms, but not in substance. President Habibie, who took office in May 1998, continued the tradition that year; Kompas On-line 2 Octobert 1998 ‘Habibie di Lubang Buaya’. The first freely elected president, Abdurrahman Wahid, remained absent during the ceremony in the year 2000 which was then presided by his deputy, VicePresident Megawati Sukarnoputri. However, many other high officials of the government and the speakers of the MPR and the DPR, Amien Rais and Akbar Tandjung attended the ceremony, who read out the text of the Pancasila and the pledge of loyalty to the Pancasila respectively. The daily Suara Pembaruan also reported that the ceremony’s name was changed into ‘Remembering the National Tragedy resulting from the Treason towards Pancasila’. It also noted that the ceremony was much briefer than in earlier years and Megawati did not pay the usual visit to the museum ‘The Treason of the Communist Party’ adjacent to the Monument, which in turn stirred a debate whether the ceremony was really accomplished and the heroes had been sufficiently honoured. Suara Pembaruan 2-10-2000. Purdy (1984: 239). Yani and his comrades are the sacrifice that had to be made to salvage the very fundament of the state, that is the Pancasila. They heroically gave their life for the common cause.

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72 Leclerc (1997). 73 Assmann (1998: 149). 74 This problem currently resurfaces in the German debate about a central monument in Berlin to commemorate the victims of the Holocaust. Some observers argue against such a monument because it would lead to a final closure of the remembrance. 75 The permanent incantation of the Indonesian ‘Dolchstoßlegende’ (stab-in-the-back legend) of Madiun, the premature and aborted rebellion of the Surakarta chapter of the PKI, and sometimes the reference to the Communist uprisings against the Dutch colonial rule, and of course ‘1965’ are the themes of this invocation. The above-mentioned White Book provides all the details and the pertinent interpretation of this myth; see Sekretariat Negara (1994). 76 Nora (1996: 15).

References Anderson, Benedict, ‘How did the Generals Die?’, Indonesia, 43 (1987), 109–34. Assmann, Aleida, ‘Funktionsgedächtnis und Speichergedächtnis – Zwei Mode der Erinnerung’, in K. Platt and M. Dabag, eds, Generation und Gedächtnis. Erinnerung und kollektive Identitäten (Opladen: Leske & Budrich, 1995), pp. 169–85. Assmann, Aleida, 1998, ‘Stabilisatoren der Erinnerung – Affekt, Symbol, Trauma’, in Jörn Rüsen and Jürgen Straub, eds, Die dunkle Spur der Vergangenheit: psychoanalytische Zugänge zum Geschichtsbewußtsein (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1998), pp. 131–52. Buku Panduan Monumen Pancasila Sakti Lubang Buaya ([Jakarta]: Pusat Sejarah dan Tradisi ABRI, 1994). Caruth, Cathy, Unclaimed Experience: Trauma, Narrative, and History (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996). Cavalli, Alessandro, ‘Gedächtnis und Identität: Wie das Gedächtnis nach katastrophalen Ereignissen rekonstruiert wird’, in K. E. Müller and J. Rüsen, eds, Historische Sinnbildung. Problemstellungen, Zeitkonzepte, Wahrnehmungshorizonte, Darstellungsstrategien (Reinbek: Rowohlt, 1997 [Rowohlts Enzyklopädie 5584]), pp. 455–70. Cribb, Robert, ‘Problems in the Historiography of the Killings in Indonesia’, in Robert Cribb, ed., The Indonesian Killings of 1965–1966: Studies from Java and Bali (Clayton, Victoria: Monash University Centre of Southeast Asian Studies, 1990 [Monash Papers on Southeast Asia 21]), pp. 1–44. Crouch, Harold, The Army and Politics in Indonesia (Ithaca NY: Cornell University Press, 1978). Dahm, Bernhard, Indonesien: Geschichte eines Entwicklungslandes (1945–1971) (Leiden: Brill, 1978 [Handbuch der Orientalistik; 3.1.1]). Friedlander, Saul, Memory, History, and the Extermination of the Jews of Europe (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1993), ‘Trauma and Transference’, pp. 116–37. Große-Kracht, Klaus, ‘Gedächtnis und Geschichte: Maurice Halbwachs–Pierre Nora’, Geschichte in Wissenschaft und Unterricht, 47(1) (1996), 21–31. Halbwachs, Maurice, Das Gedächtnis und Seine Sozialen Bedingungen (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1985). ‘Kegiatan Ilmiah dan “G-30-S”’, Madjalah Ilmu-Ilmu Sastra Indonesia, 4(1) (1968), 120–1. Kertzer, David I., ‘The Role of Ritual in Political Change’, in M. J. Aronoff, ed., Culture and Political Change (New Brunswick NJ, etc.: Transaction Books, 1983 [Political Anthropology, 2]), pp. 53–73.

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‘Kesaksian Soeharto Melalui Otobiografi’, Tempo, 6 October 1998. Klooster, Hugo A. J., Indonesiërs schrijven hun geschiedenis: de ontwikkeling van de Indonesische geschiedsbeoefening in theorie en praktijk, 1900–1980 (Dordrecht, Cinnaminson: Foris, 1985 [Verhandelingen van het Koninklijk Instituut voor Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde; 113]). Leclerc, Jacques, ‘Sang et volupté à Lobang Buaya. La femme dans le mythe d’origine de l’ordre nouveau’, paper presented at the 8th ECIMS, Göteborg 1991. Leclerc, Jacques, ‘Girls, Girls, Girls, and Crocodiles’, in Henk Schulte Nordholt, ed., Outward Appearance: Dressing State and Society in Indonesia (Leiden: KITLV, 1997 [Proceedings 4]), pp. 291–305. Loewenberg, Peter, ‘Psychoanalytische Ich-Psychologie, Objektbeziehungstheorie und ihre Anwendbarkeit in der Geschichtswissenschaft’, in Jörn Rüsen and Jürgen Straub, eds, Die dunkle Spur der Vergangenheit: psychoanalytische Zugänge zum Geschichtsbewußtsein (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1998), pp. 101–30. Lucas, Anton, One Soul One Struggle: Region and Revolution in Indonesia (Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 1991). Nora, Pierre ‘Entre Mémoire et Histoire. La problématique des Lieux’, in Les Lieux de Mémoire: tome I La République, sous la direction de Pierre Nora (Paris: Gallimard, 1984). Nora, Pierre, Zwischen Geschichte und Gedächtnis (Berlin: Wagenbach, 1990). Nora, Pierre, ‘General Introduction: Between Memory and History’, in L.D. Kritzman, ed., Realms of Memory: Rethinking the French Past, vol. I: Conflicts and Divisions, transl. by A. Goldhammer (New York: Columbia University Press, 1996), pp. 1–20. Nugroho Notosusanto and Ismail Saleh, The Coup Attempt of the ‘September 30 Movement’ in Indonesia, 2nd edn (Jakarta: Headquarter of the Indonesian Army, Center for Armed Forces History and Tradition, 1987 [1st edn August 1968]). Oei Tjoe Tat, Memoar Oei Tjoe Tat, Pembantu Presiden Soekarno (Jakarta: Hasta Mitra, 1995). Pelinka, Anton, ‘Tabus in der Politik: zur Politischen Funktion von Tabus und Enttabuisierung’, in P. Bettelheim and R. Streibel, eds, Tabu und Geschicht: zur Kultur des kollektiven Erinnerns (Vienna: Pincus, 1994), pp. 21–8. Purdy, Susan Selden, ‘Legitimation of Power and Authority in a Pluralistic State: Pancasila and Civil Religion’ (PhD thesis, Columbia University, 1984). Rauschenbach, Brigitte, ‘Stille Post: von der Übertragung mit Unverstand’, in Jörn Rüsen and Jürgen Straub, eds, Die dunkle Spur der Vergangenheit: psychoanalytische Zugänge zum Geschichtsbewußtsein (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1998), pp. 242–55. Roth, Michael S., ‘Trauma, Repräsentation und historisches Bewußtsein’, in Jörn Rüsen and Jürgen Straub, eds, Die dunkle Spur der Vergangenheit: psychoanalytische Zugänge zum Geschichtsbewußtsein (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1998), pp. 153–73. Rudas, Stephan, ‘Stichworte zur Sozialpsychologie der Tabus’, in P. Bettelheim and R. Streibel, eds, Tabu und Geschichte: zur Kultur des kollektiven Erinnerns (Vienna: Pincus, 1994), pp. 17–20. Rüsen, Jörn and Jürgen Straub, eds, Die dunkle Spur der Vergangenheit: psychoanalytische Zugänge zum Geschichtsbewußtsein (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1998 [Erinnerung, Geschichte, Identität, 2]). Schreiner, Klaus H., ‘The Making of National Heroes: Guided Democracy to New Order’, in Henk Schulte Nordholt, ed., Outward Appearance: Dressing State and Society in Indonesia (Leiden: KITLV Press, 1997 [Proceedings 4]), pp. 259–90.

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Sekretariat Negara Republik Indonesia (ed.), Gerakan 30 September: Pemberontakan Partai Komunis Indonesia, Latar Belakang, Aksi, dan Penumpasannya (Jakarta: Sekretariat Negara Republik Indonesia, 1994 [1st edn 1992]). Seminar Sedjarah: laporan lengkap atjara 1 dan 2 tentang konsepsi filsafat sedjarah nasional dan periodisasi sedjarah Indonesia (Yogyakarta: Universitas Gadjah Mada, 1958). Sen, Krishna, ‘Filming “History” Under the New Order’, in Krishna Sen, ed., Histories and Stories: Cinema in New Order Indonesia (Clayton, Victoria: Monash University, 1988). Siregar, M.R., Tragedi manusia dan kemanusiaan: Kasus Indonesia, Sebuah holokaus yang diterima sesudah perang dunia kedua (N.p.: Progres, 1995). Sundhaussen, Ulf, The Road to Power. Indonesian Military Politics 1945–1967 (Kuala Lumpur etc.: Oxford University Press, 1982). Unfried, Berthold, ‘Gedächtnis und Geschichte: Pierre Nora und die “lieux de mémoire”’, Österreichische Zeitschrift für Geschichtswissenschaft, 4(2) (1991), 79–98.

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6 CAUSES AND CONSEQUENCES OF HISTORICAL AMNESIA The annexation of the Baltic states in post-Soviet Russian popular history and political memory David Mendeloff

In January 1998 a heated diplomatic row broke out between Russia and Estonia. It was not the usual dispute over the treatment of the ethnic-Russian minority, or delimiting the border, or the issuing of visas. This time, it was altogether different: it had to do with a particular interpretation of history. The conflict was spurred by a simple off-the-cuff statement allegedly made by the Russian ambassador to an Estonian journalist about the 1939–40 Soviet occupation and annexation of Estonia. The deputy speaker of the Russian State Duma sought clarification of the Russian government’s position. In response, the deputy foreign minister of Russia penned a letter to the Deputy Speaker, articulating the official Russian position. The minister stated that, despite Baltic claims to the contrary, the Soviet Union had neither “occupied” the Baltic states in 1939, nor “annexed” them the following year.1 His position was clear: the Russian government should neither acknowledge any wrong doing on the part of the Soviet government, nor apologize to the Baltic states for Soviet actions.2 While such a statement would not surprise us if uttered by a Russian Communist Party Duma representative, it was remarkable to hear a ministerial representative of the “liberal” Yeltsin regime defend such a view, especially as an expression of official policy. In fact, as this chapter will show, the particular Russian interpretation of Soviet conduct on the eve of the Second World War – what I call the “Myth of 1939–40” – is hardly unique to the extreme left. It is widely held and deeply embedded in Russian historical consciousness. The emergence of the Myth of 1939–40 among the highest echelons of the Russian foreign policy establishment raises some important questions. Why, nearly a decade after the “revelations” of Gorbachev’s glasnost and the collapse of the Soviet Union, does Russia continue to advocate a version of history that is 79

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so obviously at odds with contemporary historical scholarship on the period? Why has it continued to advance a view of the past that so greatly offends the Baltic peoples’ fundamental sense of national identity? The memory of the events of 1939–40, after all, is the core of contemporary Baltic nationalism. Prior to 1991, fears of Baltic secession was certainly a valid motive for ignoring or denying well-documented Soviet actions in 1939–40. But why continue to purvey that myth today when Baltic independence is firmly established and thus no longer a source of any political or territorial threat? This chapter argues that the persistent historical amnesia – by which I mean the unconscious forgetting and conscious whitewashing of past events – surrounding Soviet behavior toward the Baltics in 1939–40 can be explained in part by the popular Russian demands for positive, distinctly Russian nationalist symbols in the post-Soviet period. Because events in the Baltics are closely linked to discussions of the Second World War – an event which is, in essence, a Russian national sacred cow – a more objective evaluation of the Soviet role in the Baltics in 1939–40 might sully the glorious role of the Russian people in the “Great Fatherland War.” Unfortunately, the persistence of the “Myth of 1939–40” is more than just a semantic distinction of little interest to anyone but academics and arm-chair historians. Such beliefs have very real consequences for political behavior. As I argue, Russia’s unconventional and disingenuous reading of Soviet actions in this period presents a fundamental impediment to normalizing relations with the Baltic states, and to solving especially intractable diplomatic disputes. This chapter is divided into five sections. It begins with a summary of the events of 1939–40 that are generally accepted by contemporary historical scholarship. The second section then contrasts this consensus version of history with the contemporary popular Russian view – the Myth of 1939–40. I cull the popular description of the Myth of 1939–40 from current secondary history textbook interpretations of the period. Thus, I begin that section with a brief defense of that methodological approach. The third section offers an explanation for the persistence of the Myth of 1939–40. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the significance of these beliefs for Russo–Baltic relations, the prospect for future relations, and the general importance of identifying and challenging historical amnesia and historical mythmaking.

Occupation and annexation of the Baltic states, 1939–40: the historical consensus The story of the Soviet occupation and annexation of the Baltic states begins with the signing of the Nazi–Soviet Non-aggression Pact of 23 August 1939. The “unholy alliance” as it has been called,3 which shocked the West and many in the Soviet Union and Germany as well, was a formal treaty of rapprochement and cooperation between two bitter ideological foes. Each pledged non-aggression and neutrality in the other’s regional armed conflicts. On its surface, and as Soviet propaganda and historiography emphasized, the agreement was entirely peaceful: both sides 80

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pledged not to go to war against the other. Yet, the Pact included a supplementary secret protocol – its existence long denied by the Soviet Union – which revealed obvious underlying realpolitik motivations. While the actual Soviet motivation for signing the Non-aggression Pact and its significance in bringing about the Second World War are still debated by scholars, there is little disagreement over the nature and content of the secret protocols. The protocols established “spheres of influence” between Germany and Russia: “In the event of territorial and political rearrangement,” Finland, Estonia and Latvia were to be part of the Soviet sphere, as were Eastern Poland and Bessarabia.4 Following the German invasion of Poland on 1 September 1939, and the Soviet invasion from the east 16 days later, Molotov and Ribbentrop again came together, this time to sign the Soviet–German border and friendship treaty. In order to “establish peace and order” on Polish territory and to “promote the peaceful existence of residents,” both sides delimited their new border, which happened to run through Poland. A supplementary secret protocol to the new treaty amended the secret protocol of 23 August, adding Lithuania to the Soviet sphere of influence.5 Historians continue to debate the nature of Soviet–German relations on the eve of the war, and the origins and meaning of the Nazi–Soviet Pact. Some argue that signing the Pact was part of a Soviet plan for western expansion, driven primarily by ideology. According to this school, the Soviet Union sought to foment conflict between Germany and the West, to revive the Rapallo-policy of Soviet–German rapprochement, and thereby open the way for Soviet territorial aggrandizement.6 Others argue that Soviet policy toward Germany was generally pragmatic, driven less by ideology than realpolitik, if not by institutional and policy chaos within Russia.7 Others argue that Soviet foreign policy toward Germany was the result of both highly ideological and pragmatic decisions by Stalin and his advisors.8 Still others, notably Soviet scholars and a few Western historians argue that the Soviet Union was driven into Germany’s arms primarily by a failure of the West to conclude an alliance with the Soviet Union, caused primarily by Western anticommunist hostility and paranoia.9 Yet, despite these differences, most historians concur that the Soviet–German agreements of August and September 1939, and their accompanying secret protocols, provided “the framework”10 for Soviet actions in 1939–40, which “set the conditions for Soviet political and territorial advancement westward.”11 The pledge of neutrality meant that the Soviets acquiesced to the German invasion of Western Poland and pledged to stay out of a European war in exchange for German acquiescence to the Russian invasion of Eastern Poland, the Baltic states and Bessarabia. In addition, historians still debate the motives and intentions behind Soviet intervention in the Baltics. In essence the views fall into two camps. One believes that Soviet actions were fundamentally imperialist in nature and design: that Stalin planned to sovietize and annex the Baltic states ever since the signing of the secret protocols in the summer of 1939; that the Soviets had ambitious territorial aims in the region. Others argue that Soviet policy was driven primarily by 81

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security concerns in the Baltic region; that Soviet aims in the Baltic were limited, and occupation and annexation came only in response to the heightened threat of Nazi hegemony in Europe (the occupation of the Baltic states followed the German invasion of Norway and Denmark in mid-March, and then France in June 1940).12 In the absence of “smoking gun” archival evidence, particularly that which reveals Stalin’s motives and interests, the most plausible view lies somewhere in the middle. The Soviets did have legitimate security interests in the Baltic area, hence their reasonable desire for politically- and militarily-acquiescent neighbors.13 The secret protocols gave the Soviet Union the opportunity to secure Baltic control through threats, intimidation and brute force, rather than Baltic consent and legal international agreement. In addition, we know that Stalin had at least limited imperial aims in Eastern Europe (though most agree that Stalin had little desire for world, or even European, domination). The secret protocols, then, gave Stalin the opportunity to allay his fears about the Baltics while at the same time satisfying Soviet revanchism, allowing the regaining of former imperial Russian lands “lost” in the 1920s. Despite the debates, historians generally agree that Soviet policy, whether purposeful or impromptu, was intent on ensuring Baltic acquiescence to Soviet domination in the region. And, whether for security or ideological reasons, there is little dispute among historians that the Soviets sought direct control over the Baltic states and that Stalin chose eventually to forcefully annex them, rather than simply dominate them from afar.14 Thus, while historians may disagree about the Soviet Union’s motives for invading the Baltic states, most agree on the nature of Soviet actions toward those states following the Soviet–German rapprochement. First, it is widely agreed that the “mutual assistance” pacts the Soviets signed with each of the Baltic states in the fall of 1939 essentially constituted the first stage of Soviet military occupation, which would culminate in the spring of 1940, and eventual annexation that summer.15 The Soviets intimidated Baltic states into signing the agreements, which established Soviet military bases and the stationing of 25,000 Soviet soldiers on each of their territories.16 It is also well known that the representatives of each of the Baltic states signed the mutual assistance treaties under duress. Records and eye-witness accounts of those meetings show both Molotov and Stalin openly threatening the Baltic representatives with “the consequences” of a failure to sign. These threats were backed up by large-scale Soviet troop deployments along the borders of the Baltic states.17 While the treaties were signed by each of the governments, few can argue that they were mutually agreed upon and voluntary.18 Second, most historians agree that in the spring of 1940 the Soviet Union militarily occupied and subsequently annexed the three Baltic states.19 In May and June, in the aftermath of the Soviet “victory” over Finland in the Winter War and in the wake of German successes in the west, the Soviets took decisive action to solidify the inclusion of the Baltics in the Soviet orbit. On the pretext of antiSoviet activity – in particular, that the three Baltic states had transformed the 82

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Baltic Entente into a military alliance directed against the Soviet Union (the so-called, “Baltic conspiracy”) – the Soviets issued ultimatums to all three Baltic states. They were ordered to dismantle their governments and turn over power to pro-Soviet regimes. To oversee the transition, Stalin dispatched his special representatives to the Baltic states – Zhdanov to Estonia, Vyshinskii to Latvia and Dekanozov to Lithuania. In early July 1940, in the presence of nearly 650,000 Red Army soldiers, and during the first of several waves of mass deportations to the Soviet Union, Moscow’s representatives organized Soviet-style elections: only individuals approved by the Communist Party were allowed to run. The elections were marked by massive fraud.20 With new “freely elected” “People’s Assemblies” in place, all three countries applied for admission into the Soviet Union. In August 1940 all had become Soviet republics. In effect, despite promises to the contrary made during the mutual assistance treaty negotiations in the fall of 1939, the Soviet Union annexed the Baltic states. The pattern was nearly identical to that which took place several months earlier in Western Ukraine and Western Belorussia.21 There is little doubt among most historians of the period, as well as among specialists of international law, that Soviet actions in 1940 constituted annexation. Indeed, these events have served as the classic textbook cases of what constitutes “annexation” under international law.22 There is also little debate among historians about the consequences of Soviet occupation on the ground. Massive political repressions, similar to that which had taken place in Eastern Poland the previous fall, followed the Soviet occupation in 1940 – large-scale arrests, torture, summary executions and deportations, have all been well documented. While thousands were arrested on the eve of the summer elections in 1940 as an obvious message of intimidation, the most significant wave of mass arrests, executions and deportations took place on the evening of 13–14 June 1941, and then again on the eve of the Nazi advance. During that operation, according to NKVD records, some 10,000 Estonians, 17,500 Lithuanians and 17,000 Latvians were deported to Soviet camps in Siberia and Central Asia.23 Based on a careful analysis of Baltic demographic data, an estimated 85,000 Lithuanian, Latvian and Estonian citizens were detained, arrested, interned and/or deported between 1940 and 1941.24 Of those deported, an estimated 55,000 died or were killed.25 As in Eastern Poland in the wake of the Red Army’s retreat, thousands who had been incarcerated by the NKVD were executed: a fate which befell an estimated 4,600 Baltic citizens between 1940 and 1941.26 Including forced evacuations, as well as those mobilized into the Red Army but effectively treated as prisoners, the total number of victims – deported, arrested, executed – in the wake of the June 1941 Red Army retreat rose to an estimated 130,000.27 After reoccupation the Soviets carried out even more mass arrests and deportations. In the immediate reoccupation period, 1944–5, executions and deportee deaths have been estimated at 30,000.28 A massive wave of deportations occurred in the late 1940’s, peaking in the spring of 1949 in the wake of intensified collectivization and dekulakization efforts. According to analysis of Soviet documents, Rein Taagepera estimates that during the last ten days of March 1949, each 83

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of the Baltic states lost about 3 percent of their native populations (about 60,000 from Estonia, 50,000 from Latvia, 40,000 from Lithuania were deported).29 All told, in the first decade after the war’s end, Soviet officials arrested and deported an estimated 640,000 Baltic inhabitants.30 Finally, soon after Soviet reoccupation in 1944 a bitter partisan war ensued in all three countries that lasted nearly a decade. During that time an estimated 40,000–50,000 Lithuanians, 25,000 Latvians and 15,000 Estonians were killed.31

The Russian popular view of the events of 1939–40: the interpretation in contemporary Russian history textbooks History textbooks and popular views of history We can pursue numerous avenues of inquiry to identify the content of popular history and historical memory, from popular entertainment, such as films and popular literature, to memorials, museums and public commemorations.32 Yet, none of these reveal as vividly and substantively the popular view of history as does the core of mass public education – the history textbook. It is, therefore, from an analysis of the current generation of Russia’s history textbooks that I derive my assessment of the popular Russian view of the events of 1939–40. Before describing that view, however, a few words in defense of this approach are necessary. History textbooks are revealing of popular views of history for several reasons. First, they embody “lowest common denominator” history – a distilled, essentialist version of popular history and historical memory that appeals to the widest possible audience. Thus, as E. H. Dance argued more than thirty years ago: It is not the cranks with whom we are concerned, but the mass of normal … opinion about history. The best place to find that is not in philosophical or even academic writings, however brilliant or foolish, but in the school textbooks. It is the business of a textbook to be commonplace: the school history books of any country contain the commonplaces of its historical thinking.33 Similarly, historian Henry Steele Commager has written that, “What children have learned in school is not to be taken too seriously as an index to their character, but it is an almost infallible guide to the moral system that adults approve.”34 Thus, history textbooks are important not only because they may inculcate particular views into future generations, but because they reflect the popular tendencies of views of the nation and its role in history.35 Thus, unlike other popular expressions of popular historical views – films, novels, memorials and public commemorations – they not only reflect popular views, but are 84

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explicitly designed to instill them into future generations. They are for that reason exceptionally illuminating, but also inherently important in and of themselves. Second, in many societies, especially those with highly decentralized educational systems subject to local input and oversight, the content of mass public history education is one of the best windows onto popular views. Most modern societies are clearly marked by a diversity of beliefs and opinions. Nonetheless, most societies exhibit strong tendencies toward certain beliefs and opinions over others – particularly about history. Given the nature of textbooks, and the need to reconcile often diverse social interests, they often reflect these dominant tendencies. Given the nature of the Russian educational system today the content of history textbooks indeed reflects much more than the particular views of their authors. In the Russian case, the content of public history education is particularly revealing of popular historical consciousness for at least two reasons. First, one finds fairly consistent interpretations across an array of textbook titles. Particularly in decentralized systems such as Russia’s, textbook content may vary considerably across regions. Thus, generally consistent interpretations across textbook titles constitute strong evidence of core beliefs. Second, Russia’s educational system has undergone significant institutional reform over the past eight years. The content of history has been radically revised since the Soviet Communist Party began discussing “historical blankspots” in the late 1980’s. The fact that such views, running counter to the general historical consensus, still persist – despite the massive purge of Soviet-era historical ideas, beliefs, interpretations and cadres of textbook authors – demonstrates that such views are in fact deeply ingrained.36 Historical amnesia and the Myth of 1939–40 in the new generation of Russian history textbooks A survey of the latest generation of history textbooks that are most widely used in Russia’s schools (and which, incidentally, are also those used in ethnic-Russian schools in the Baltic states) reveals a view of the events of 1939–40 that is greatly at odds with the general historical consensus.37 In a nutshell, the popular Russian view of Soviet–Baltic relations on the eve of the Second World War – what I call the Myth of 1939–40 – is that the Soviet Union neither occupied nor annexed the Baltic states. Relations were governed by mutual agreements and treaties, which were signed by heads of state and endorsed by the Baltic peoples through popular elections. While the Red Army and Soviet representatives were present in the Baltic states, elections were held there and the process of incorporation into the Soviet Union was legal. There were arrests and deportations, but such things happened all over the Soviet Union at that time and, most importantly, paled in comparison to the sacrifices made by non-Balts in the struggle against Nazi aggression. Despite a plethora of revelations about the Soviet past that began to emerge in popular and scholarly literature in the late 1980s, this particular view of events 85

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differs very little from the classic Soviet interpretation.38 The only differences are twofold: first, the class-based rhetoric characteristic of the Soviet narrative is now absent. Second, the tendentiousness of the texts is much more subtle: In the narrative of events presented in the textbook history, the facts themselves are often indisputable. It is rather the particular emphasis, organization and presentation of these facts, and the omission of others, that leads to a highly objectionable interpretation. My aim in this section is to analyze in some detail the popular interpretation of Baltic relations on the eve of the war as presented in the latest generation of Russian history textbooks. I approach this analysis from the perspective of the scholarly consensus outlined in the previous section, which is generally consistent with the popular Baltic view.39 The Myth of 1939–40 is marked by both distortion and omission. Thus, in analyzing these events, I examine the way in which certain details are remembered, as well as highlight those facts that have seemingly been forgotten. Annexation: a peaceful, voluntary incorporation The Russian view of the annexation of the Baltic states as a largely voluntary, legal and peaceful incorporation is a highly selective and ultimately distorted reading of history. Through the description of the events surrounding the 1939–40 occupations and annexations, the new Russian history textbooks imply that Soviet actions were either historically justified, or widely supported by popular opinion – in either case, a legitimate action. The Soviet-orchestrated election fraud, intimidation and violence that precipitated the annexations are largely omitted or only obliquely mentioned. The unsavory aspects of Soviet involvement tend to be treated gingerly, with oblique references and innocuous language. Soviet-era official history often went to great lengths to rationalize the incorporation of the Baltic states into the Soviet Union, stressing both that the governments of those states were involved in “anti-Soviet” activity and that the people of the Baltic states welcomed Soviet incorporation. They also greatly stressed the legality of the move, focusing on the fact of elections, rather than on the obviously fraudulent conduct of them.40 The new Russian texts therefore diverge very little from the Soviet line. Take for example the signing of the mutual assistance pacts with the Baltic states in the fall of 1939. Ostrovskii and Utkin’s eleventh grade History of Russia notes, “In accordance with treaties concluded with the USSR government, by September–October 1939 Red Army garrisons were located in these states.”41 Danilov and Kosulina’s ninth grade text similarly states, “In the fall of 1939 the Soviet Union concluded with Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania a mutual assistance agreement, in accordance with which Soviet forces were introduced into the country.”42 Typically, there is no mention of the coercive nature of the agreements. Unlike these texts, Dmitrenko and Shestakov’s standard eleventh grade History of the Fatherland does refer to Soviet pressure in the fall of 1939 by noting that 86

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“in the conditions at the beginning of the Second World War” the Baltic governments “were forced to accept a Soviet government proposal on the conclusion of a mutual assistance pact.” However, the authors go on to write: According to the agreement, which was signed in September–October 1939, the Soviet Union was obligated to provide aid, including military aid, to the Baltic republics in all cases of threats to the independence by any European power. The Baltic states in turn were obligated to aid the USSR in the case of an attack by any European power through their territory or from the Baltic Sea.43 Thus, while the reader is told that the Baltics may have been “forced” into signing the agreement, it was simply an unfortunate and inevitable result of “conditions” on the eve of the war. Further, without any additional detail the legalistic and antiseptic description of the agreement’s content makes it all seem perfectly reasonable, even beneficial to the Baltic states – after all the Soviets pledged to defend the independence of the Baltics! This qualification makes Soviet actions seem somehow more understandable and less worthy of condemnation. The Russian texts – just as Soviet textbooks before them – offer innocuous descriptions of the events of the summer of 1940 that strongly imply that they were legally defensible and reasonable. While the texts note some Baltic opposition to early Soviet moves, the overall emphasis is that elections were eventually held, the Baltics states themselves requested incorporation into the Soviet Union, and the request was accepted by the Soviet legislature and thus legally codified: In the summer of 1940 “people’s governments” were formed in Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia, headed by public figures and anti-fascists who sought to be united with the Soviet Union. In June 1940, elections took place for the People’s Sejm of Latvia and Lithuania and the State Duma of Estonia. In the elections candidates of blocs headed by communists gained victory. Sessions of the People’s Sejm of Latvia and Lithuania and the State Duma of Estonia on 21–22 July 1940 announced the establishment of Soviet power in the Baltic countries and appealed to the Supreme Soviet of the USSR to accept Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia into the Union of Soviet Socialists Republics. In the beginning of August 1940 the Supreme Soviet of the USSR satisfied the request of the Baltic states and accepted them into the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.44 This reading of the events in the larger context implies that the incorporation of the Baltics was as much, or more, a result of Baltic popular will than Soviet political machinations. Notably, the texts almost universally fail to use the highly descriptive – and accurate – word “annexation.” One rather backhanded exception 87

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is Dmitrenko, who writes, “But the world did not recognize it as a joining together [ prisoedinenie], instead evaluating it as an annexation by the USSR.”45 Indeed, this continues a central theme in the Russian (and Soviet) narrative of the Second World War – one of Russia as aggrieved victim: Soviet behavior was really in the best interest of the states involved and the incorporation was legal, yet the Russians were misunderstood and labeled aggressors. The subtle implication here is that the Russians, not just the people of the Baltic states, are also “victims.” Ostrovskii and Utkin’s eleventh grade text is a bit more generous, noting that “In June 1940, under the pretense of defending against an unfurling of anti-Soviet activities, additional forces were introduced in the Baltic states and the closest figures to Stalin were sent there. Under their control new governments were formed and in June–July elections were carried out.”46 However, this is the end of the discussion: nothing more is said about the elections, particularly about their legality. Similarly, Danilov and Kosulina’s standard ninth grade History of Russia only obliquely questions the validity of the elections: “The new organs of power that were elected under the control of the Soviet representatives requested that the Supreme Soviet of the USSR accept Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia as part of the Soviet Union.”47 Omitting discussion of repressions Yet, the most striking and least subtle feature of the Myth of 1939–40 as expressed in the new generation of history textbooks is the almost complete absence of any mention of the repressive policies instituted in the immediate occupation and postwar period. The conduct of the Soviet occupation of the Baltics in 1940 – the mass deportations and assimilation policies – are either rarely mentioned, or their significance deflated.48 For example, after several pages of descriptions laboriously cataloging the physical damage inflicted on Russia at the hands of the Nazis and the immediate measures taken to return the economy and society to normal, Dmitrenko and his colleagues make only a single vague reference to “deported peoples,” who, along with GULAG inmates and former prisoners of war (POWs) “entered peacetime along their own particular path.”49 This general pattern of omission is characteristic of the Myth of 1939–40. The absence of any mention of the occupation policies also helps to imply that the incorporations were popularly supported and acceptable to the local population, or that the Balts were at least complicit in any “excesses.” (This tendency to shift the blame off of Soviet actions and on to others – extremely pervasive in the Soviet narrative of the prewar years – will be discussed in greater detail below.) Indeed, rather than discuss the bloodshed that occurred during the occupations, the texts prefer to emphasize how they occurred relatively peacefully and quietly. One of the standard eleventh grade history texts writes that the “Stalin leadership’s geopolitical gains were achieved practically without any active military action … .”50 while another emphasizes that, “The expansion of the Soviet territory in the west took place without any kind of military conflict.”51 Yet, such statements are disingenuous. 88

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While true that there was no conflict like that which occurred with Finland, the occupations were quite brutal and the human and material devastation was immense. To the degree that texts do discuss the occupation and sovietization, very little detail is offered, or discussion tends to be overly vague and unsatisfying: On those territories that had entered into the Soviet Union either on the eve of the war or after it, there occurred conflictual processes. In the Baltics, Western Ukraine and Western Belorussia, in Moldavia, along with industrialization and the establishment of cities and villages, collectivization was carried out along the lines of the 1930’s. Traditional ways of life were destroyed, “dekulakization” occurred, and large-scale expulsion of people was carried out.52 The use here of the passive voice, which omits any reference to agency, is also especially revealing.53 Similarly, Danilov and Kosulina write: Along with other changes, the war led to an increase in ideological [ideinykh] and political movements, including national movements, that could not be controlled “from above.” They were of a particular scope on the territories that had entered into the USSR in 1939–1940. There the struggle against collectivization and sovietization continued until the early 50’s.54 “Participation in these [movements],” we are told, led to “deportation, exile, or arrest.” While these descriptions certainly go farther than their Soviet predecessors, they are still disappointingly consistent with the Myth of 1939–40. Aside from the absence of any actual detail (this in contrast to the detailed descriptions of Nazi horrors inflicted on the Russians, which I discuss below), there are a number of problems, particularly from the perspective of a Baltic reader. First, the Baltic states and others, occupied and annexed, are again innocuously referred to as “territories” that had “entered into the USSR.” Not only does this continue to imply a generally peaceful and voluntary process, but referring to them as “territories” overlooks the fact that these were in fact internationally-recognized independent states. And although repressions took place, we are told that these territories also received the benefit of industrialization and urbanization. This added qualification is similar to the claim noted above that the signing of the mutual assistance treaty, although it may have been “forced,” brought the benefit of collective security to the Baltics. Second, while the anti-Soviet guerrillas in the Baltic states were certainly fighting “collectivization and sovietization” they were ultimately fighting against foreign occupation by the Soviet Union. To fail to characterize their struggle this way implies that their grievances were similar to that of many other disgruntled Soviet citizens, when in fact they were much different. 89

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Third, the passage implies that the victims of the deportations, exiles and arrests were only those involved in some kind of organized national movements or guerrilla activities, when in fact the terror was much more arbitrary and the types of individuals persecuted much broader. The Soviets deported entire classes of individuals deemed “counter-revolutionary,” often regardless of their political sympathies, associations or actual deeds.55 In fact, a great deal of guerrilla activity in the Baltics was focused on disrupting the mass deportations that were being carried out. Further, most of those involved in the guerrilla activities were either killed in action, or arrested and then shot. This leads to the fourth point: while we are told that there occurred “deportations, exiles and arrests,” these descriptions gloss over the number of those who were murdered while under arrest, or who died in captivity. Overall, the failure to treat sensitively the annexation and occupation in 1940 makes this discussion rather misleading and unsatisfying.

Explaining the Myth of 1939–40 Why does the Myth of 1939–40 persist despite a decade of massive historical revisionism, the opening of archives, and access to western scholarship? Examining the Myth as it is presented in the latest generation of Russian schoolbooks provides part of the answer. Specifically, the Russian treatment of the 1939–40 events must be seen in the larger context of the “Great Fatherland War.” In this section I argue that both the distortions and omissions that comprise the Myth are grounded in a particular interpretation of the Second World War – an interpretation that ultimately exonerates the Russian people for Soviet actions in the Baltics on the eve of the war. Doing so essentially absolves Russians from the responsibility of confronting the reality of Soviet actions in the Baltics in 1939–40, leading to the omission of certain details of Soviet behavior and a generally skewed interpretation of events. Specifically, the Myth of 1939–40 rests on a particular interpretation, first, of German–Soviet relations on the eve of the war, and second, of the nature of the Second World War itself. How these two events are understood and discussed in the latest generation of history textbooks explains a great deal of the amnesia, distortion and insensitivity that characterize the Myth. I discuss each in turn below. German–Soviet relations on the eve of the War: the Nazi–Soviet Pact and its consequences The most significant of the previously taboo subjects now discussed in Russian history textbooks is the secret protocols to the Nazi–Soviet Pact of 1939. Yet, the texts are extremely tentative in both their detailed descriptions of the protocols, and in criticizing Soviet action. The protocols are often mentioned only in passing, or in some cases parts of the document itself are simply excerpted without comment. Virtually the only description of the protocols in the eleventh grade text by Ostrovskii and Utkin, for example, is a single vague sentence: “The 90

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[Nazi–Soviet] treaty had a secret additional protocol which discussed the fate of the Polish state.”56 What is that “fate”? What about the Baltic states? These questions go unanswered. Specifically, the popular interpretation of the Nazi–Soviet agreements and the secret protocols comprises three distinct arguments that serve to rationalize Soviet actions and minimize Soviet culpability in the events in the Baltics in 1939–40. The first argument emphasizes the security benefits that followed from the agreements. The second stresses the redress of Russian imperial/Soviet territorial losses since 1918 and the “liberation” of ethnic diasporas. The third argument places Soviet actions in a comparative perspective and seeks to spread the blame for the Pact and, by implication, its consequences. Each argument minimizes the egregiousness of Soviet conduct and in many ways assuages Russia’s feeling of culpability for Soviet actions. Let us briefly take each argument in turn. Argument 1: Security According to the new Russian history, the signing of the Soviet–German agreements and the secret protocols ultimately enhanced the security of the Soviet Union. The emphasis on the security benefits that resulted from the agreements is quite similar to the classic Soviet interpretation. However, the argument that leads to this conclusion is slightly different: because the Soviet Union maintained the fiction for nearly fifty years that the secret protocols did not exist, the Soviet interpretation claimed that security was enhanced by the “official truce” with Germany, which provided “breathing room” to prepare for future war. “The acceptance of the German proposition,” goes the Soviet view, “enabled the Soviet Union to avoid war on two fronts in unfavorable conditions, and to gain time to strengthen the country’s defenses.”57 Thus Soviet action was entirely realistic and ultimately honorable. However, because the secret protocols are now universally acknowledged to exist, the new texts additionally argue that security was enhanced by the “expansion of the Soviet borders” – the euphemism for the occupation and annexation of the Western territories – afforded by the agreements. For example, Danilov and Kosulina, in their standard ninth grade text, write, “[By] concluding the treaty with Germany, Stalin significantly removed the USSR as an initial point of attack by a potential enemy, and received a gain in time for the strengthening of the defenses of the country … .”58 Similarly, Soroko-Tsiupa’s tenth grade World in the Twentieth Century states: “Since the main forces of both fighting coalitions were located on the western front, the Soviet Union adopted new measures to expand its territory, following from the secret Soviet–German protocols.”59 According to Dmitrenko’s eleventh grade text, “In accordance with the division of ‘spheres of interest’ the Soviet leadership strengthened the security of the country, securing its military-strategic position.”60 91

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The conclusion that the expansion of Soviet territory as prescribed by the secret protocols enhanced Soviet security is disturbing in its own right since it rests on a false assumption about the security-enhancing benefits of empire – a “myth of empire” that dubiously equates imperial expansion with security.61 Yet, whether or not the Pact and the annexation of the Baltics actually enhanced Soviet security is still contested by historians. The texts, however, omit reference to any compelling and respectable counter-arguments that the expansion of Soviet borders actually damaged Russia’s strategic position in 1939: for example, that it forced the Red Army to spread itself too thin over a vastly expanded border while focusing its attention on occupation and subjugation of foreign territory, rather than on preparation of defense against German attack; or that territorial expansion now meant that it shared a land border with Germany, thus eliminating the Soviet Union’s natural “buffer zone” in the west. Further, one never sees the general argument that signing the Pact was an important cause of the World War in 1939. While historians debate the overall weight the Nazi–Soviet Pact carries among all the other factors leading to war, most agree that it greatly eased Nazi expansion in the east by guaranteeing Soviet acquiescence to its invasion of Poland.62 Also disturbing is the complete failure to evaluate and assess broadly the Pact and its consequences. Indeed, much of the rationale for signing the Pact and for annexing the Baltics was based on serious misperceptions and false assumptions about international relations at the time, the nature of Baltic politics and society, and the capabilities of Soviet military and foreign policy.63 Yet textbook readers get no sense of these larger, and contemporaneously significant, issues. Finally, the interpretation is troubling in light of the real consequences of Soviet actions in the west. It provides yet another justification for Soviet annexation of the Baltic states and the other western republics. At a minimum it excuses the failure to mention the consequences of Soviet actions: by stressing that the Pact and the protocols actually increased Soviet security, it militates against a complete accounting of Soviet actions in the Baltics, or discussion of culpability. Argument 2: Historical justice The second argument that makes up the unique interpretation of the Soviet–German agreements is that the Pact redressed historical injustices perpetrated against the Soviet Union after the First World War, allowing for the reconstitution of traditional Russian imperial lands wrongfully taken away from the Soviet Union. As Danilov and Kosulina’s ninth grade text states, the Pact afforded “a real possibility to reestablish the Soviet state in the borders of the former Russian empire,” and “[With the incorporation of the Baltic states], almost all of the western gubernia that had earlier been part of the Russian empire, with the exception of Poland and Finland, were returned as part of the USSR.”64 Dmitrenko writes that the Pact allowed the Soviet Union “to unite again the territory of the former Russian empire lost in 1918–1920.”65 92

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Argument 3: Spreading the blame The third and final distinctive element of the interpretation of the Nazi–Soviet agreements is also the most explicit in diminishing Soviet culpability, and hence in diverting attention away from Soviet actions in the Baltics. This argument compares Soviet actions to those of the West and seeks to spread the blame for the Pact. Specifically, the new post-Soviet textbooks present the signing of the Pact as no worse than the West’s policy of appeasement. As one tenth grade world history text explains: “The secret protocol witnessed a turn in Soviet foreign policy to the same kind of ‘Munich’ course of ‘appeasement’ of Germany, which had been carried out previously by Britain and France in the time of American neutrality.”66 This is clearly a dubious comparison, since British policy, however misguided, selfish and irresponsible, was clearly not motivated by any kind of territorial aggrandizement. The Soviet Union on the other hand, as the secret protocols make clear, sought to achieve enormous territorial expansion without the risk of war. Yet such a distinction is obscured. Even more objectionable, the new textbooks present the view that all parties involved – not just the Soviet Union – must share equally the blame for the Pact, and also by implication, for its consequences. For example, Ostrovskii and Utkin write of the August protocol that it was, “an unscrupulous political game in which each of the three sides [USSR, Germany, Poland] tried to gain security at the expense of the others, [and] led to the fact that the peoples of all the countries lost.”67 Indeed, by stating that “each of the three sides” was involved in political machinations to “gain security” one is left with the impression that (1) German and Soviet actions may actually have been justified, and (2) Poland was equally responsible for its own occupation and dismemberment! Closely related to this is the popular Soviet-era argument that the duplicity of the Western powers essentially forced the Soviets into signing the Pact. “The perfidious politics of the Western Powers,” goes the Soviet version, “forced the Soviet Union to take this step.”68 According to this view, general Western intransigence over signing a collective security agreement with the Soviet Union against Hitler and alleged secret British–Germany contacts in the summer of 1939, pushed the Soviets into Germany’s arms.69 Given the general danger of having to fight a war both in the Far East against the Japanese and in the west against the Germans while being internationally isolated, the Soviets had no choice but to turn to its hated enemy. Western duplicity closed any other option to the Soviets.70 Rather then viewing the old argument with skepticism and perhaps seeing it as a convenient excuse that Stalin and Soviet historians used to justify Soviet behavior, the new generation of history textbooks accept the old interpretations without exception. As Dmitrenko and his colleagues write: In the summer of 1939 the USSR proposed the conclusion of a military convention with England and France providing for common action of the armed forces of all three countries in the event of aggression. The ruling 93

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circles of England and France did not respond to the proposal. The USSR was faced with the threat of isolation. In this environment, Stalin and Molotov made the decision to agree to a German proposal to conclude a pact of non-aggression.71 The implication is that the West must share equally in the blame for the Pact and its consequences. Further, the implication that the Germans approached the Soviets with the idea for a pact conveys the impression of the Soviet Union as an unwitting victim – rather than a willing participant in the German aggression and the Soviet Union’s own territorial expansion. However, the historical record remains inconclusive as to who actually initiated the agreement. Though there is some powerful evidence to support the claim that the impetus came from the Soviet side, this is ultimately a contested empirical fact and should be noted as such. This tendency to spread the blame and diminish Soviet culpability permeates the interpretation of the immediate prewar years. There is nothing inherently wrong with this seemingly objective approach. Yet, in the Russian case it seems highly defensive, and generally results in authors assigning no blame at all to the Soviets, let alone a part of it.72 It stresses others’ complicity at the expense of Soviet responsibility. Very little of the USSR’s behavior is actually weighed and evaluated. At the same time, others’ weaknesses and duplicity (Britain’s appeasement policy, for example) are openly castigated with great relish. While there was certainly Baltic complicity in carrying out the occupation policies, as there was in Eastern Poland, whitewashing the experience in this way is entirely misleading. Each of these three arguments rationalizes the absence of any substantive discussion of the negative consequences of the Pact for the Baltic states and the other western areas of the former Soviet Union occupied and annexed in 1939–40. The implicit argument here is clear: if the Pact and the secret protocols were justified, then so too were the actions taken in support of them, as well as the consequences that resulted. Missing in the discussion of the Soviet–German agreements is any mention of alternative interpretations: for example, that Stalin’s decision to sign the agreements – and the way in which they were carried out – greatly undermined, rather than enhanced, Soviet security; or that the signing of the Pact was driven by Soviet imperial desires.73 Of course, also missing is any discussion of the consequences of this supposed increase in Soviet security for the Baltic states, Poland and Bessarabia. Despite this, it is clear that whether or not security was either a central Soviet motivation, or a result, in no way justifies whitewashing the consequences of those actions in 1939–40, especially given the centrality of this experience in popular Baltic national consciousness. Textbook readers also never read arguments that the secret protocols are explicitly objectionable in terms of international law and morality. The protocols allowed the Soviet Union an entirely free hand in the Baltics, greatly easing their occupation and annexation. Whether or not the Soviets had the annexation of the 94

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Baltics in mind when Molotov signed the agreements in August and September 1939 is debated by scholars, but the obvious consequences of that act, for all intents and purposes, are quite clear: occupation and annexation followed directly from the signing of the secret protocols. Holy War, Just War: the meaning and significance of the “Great Fatherland War” As argued above, the popular view of the prewar years casts the secret protocols in such a light that any serious discussion of the Soviet occupation is rendered unnecessary. Yet there is one other aspect of the Russian treatment of the Second World War that also exacerbates historical amnesia about 1939–40: the immense Soviet/Russian sacrifice and suffering. As one textbook declares: During the war the ability of our people to carry severe social burdens, worked out by a thousand years of Russian experience, was sharply evident. The war once again demonstrated the surprising “talent” of the Russia people to expose all of their best qualities, abilities, and potential, particularly in extreme conditions.74 Whereas the Soviet actions in 1939–40 may have been morally ambiguous, by June 1941 everything changed: the Soviet Union became the victim, and the war a heroic “Just War.” As Dmitrenko’s eleventh grade textbook declares, the Soviet Union “carried out a just war, that predetermined the unity and cohesion of the army and the people, the enormous will to victory and mass heroism.”75 By 1944 the war had become one of “liberation” of the occupied areas of the West and of Eastern Europe as a whole. As the authors of History of the Fatherland write, it was “the Red Army alone” that would “carry out the crushing defeat of the enemy and liberate the peoples of Europe from the Hitlerite occupiers.”76 The struggle between the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany took on a Manichean cast and became for the Russians, in the words of one textbook, a “Holy War.”77 The historical service of the Soviet people and its armed forces is that by defeating the fascist horde, they destroyed the danger of aggression spreading to other countries and continents. The Soviet Union became the main force that obstructed German fascism’s path to world domination. The peoples of the Soviet Union carried on their shoulders the central burden of war and played the decisive role in the crushing defeat of Hitlerite Germany.78 That view of the Soviet experience after 1941 colors the entire interpretation of the war – its origins, conduct and aftermath. The events of the immediate prewar years are minor and insignificant in comparison to the mythical “Holy War” of 1941–5. As a result, the prewar events simply don’t warrant close attention. 95

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In short, describing the war as a “Holy War,” a “Just War” and a “War of Liberation” that saved the world from fascism allows attention to be diverted away from the Soviet Union’s prewar conduct, and absolves the Russians of any compelling reason to focus on, and condemn, Soviet actions. The interpretation implicitly invites comparison of Soviet actions against that of the Nazis – the glorious “Holy War” versus the brutal, bloody fascist aggression. It implicitly invites readers to weigh Soviet pre-1941 actions against the redeeming, heroic, self-sacrificial actions of 1941–5. The conclusion is obvious. Thus, the popular interpretation of the Russian war experience emphasizes the uniqueness and exceptionalism of Russian suffering and sacrifice, so much so that Russia’s almost mythical “heroic struggle” overshadows previous or subsequent Soviet misdeeds and the suffering of other groups. The heroic, self-sacrificial deeds of 1944 in essence negate the need for the Russian narrative to dwell on Soviet pre-1941 misconduct. Undeniably, the Russians at times performed heroically and suffered greatly from Nazi aggression. That is neither disputed nor need it be minimized. Yet, the overwhelming sense in the popular view of the war of Russian exceptionalism and self-sacrifice has served as an explicit or implicit justification for minimizing or ignoring issues of Soviet aggression, and the suffering it caused in the Baltic states and elsewhere. Specifically, the texts make two implicit arguments that justify the neglect of more substantive discussion of Soviet aggression in 1939. First, the narrative of the war emphasizes in great detail the horror of the Nazi occupation in the newlyacquired Western republics. The implication is that the fate of the Baltic peoples at the hands of the Soviets before June 1941 pales in comparison with their fate at the hands of the Nazis. As Danilov and Kosulina write, “Preparing for so-called ‘total war’ the Hitlerites worked out a plan of monstrous evil in the occupied territories. The general plan ‘Ost’ occupied a particular place, according to which 120–40 million Russians, Ukrainians, Belorussians, Poles and Lithuanians were subject to deportation and destruction.”79 “On the seized territories,” writes Ostrovskii and Utkin, “the fascists created death camps and concentration camps, thousands of prisons and ghettos. Brutal punishment was carried out against the local populations.”80 Such descriptions of Nazi horror, and the specific mention of the non-Russians as victims, stand in sharp contrast to the benign descriptions of the Soviet occupation in 1939–40. These detailed descriptions of the brutal Nazi reign in the Western republics serve to excuse the superficial treatment of the 1939– 40 Soviet occupations. At the same time the texts offer a second implicit line of argument that emphasizes how the Russians, in particular, made tremendous sacrifices on behalf of the other victims of Nazi aggression. The texts, for example, stress the particular enormity of the Red Army’s sacrifice and suffering in defense of Nazi victims. We are reminded that, “Soviet POWs were methodically destroyed. Soviet POWs, 3.9 million, were destroyed just on the occupied territory of the USSR. On the territory of Poland 1.8 million of our POWs died in camps. Quite a few rotted in camps and as workers both in Germany and in its occupied lands.”81 Thus, the 96

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not-so-subtle message: in light of the horror inflicted on them by the Nazis, all the peoples of the Soviet Union – particularly perhaps those of the new Western republics – owe a debt of gratitude to the Soviet Union – most of all to Russia – for paying such a high price for their “liberation”: “In the course of liberating the peoples of Europe from the Hitlerite occupation, more than a million Soviet soldiers and officers were killed. The absolute majority of them were the sons of Russia.”82 An especially important, yet subtle, element of these arguments, as revealed in the statements above, is the careful use of the term “Soviet” as distinct from the ethnonym “Russian.” “The first hours of the war demonstrated that people were prepared, not sparing life, to battle for the freedom of the Fatherland,” writes one text.83 “From the very first days of the war, the peoples of the RSFSR, as well as all the peoples of the country, defended their Motherland, its honor and independence,” writes another.84 But which people? Whose Motherland? Whose honor and independence? At times, the term “Soviet,” or reference simply to “the people,” is used to obscure ethnic differences between Russians and non-Russians, for example, in emphasizing the great horror of Nazi aggression inflicted upon the Western Soviet republics in 1941. At other times the texts conflate “Soviet” and “Russian.” As was common in the Soviet period, the term “Soviet” simply becomes a synonym for “Russian.” At yet other times, when convenient, the texts use the ethnonym in explicit distinction to the non-ethnic term as a way of showing that the Russians themselves suffered more than others, and perhaps deserve greater reverence and respect. Most important this use of language helps to deflect attention away from Soviet actions in 1939–40 within the narrative of the war and to absolve Russians of any sense of guilt for Soviet actions. In the final analysis, given the threat of destruction that they faced in 1941 and the heroic liberation by the Red Army in 1944, it is simply not important that these “new” members of the Soviet family were forcibly incorporated just months before the Nazi invasion. Generally, there is a remarkable lack of sensitivity to the fact that the same feelings felt by Russians during the Nazi occupation were precisely those felt by the Baltic peoples not only in 1940, but also in 1944–5 when they were “liberated” by the Red Army. When one reads of the horrible losses suffered in “the struggle against the occupiers on the territory temporarily seized by the enemy,”85 one can’t help but think, “What about the Soviet occupations in the West in 1939–40?” While in terms of Russian casualties the Baltic occupation is treated as a footnote to the war, it is hardly a footnote to the Baltic peoples themselves. One should not be left with the impression that the Soviet textbooks gloss over other central “blankspots” from the Stalin period. In fact, the textbooks are quite candid in discussions of Stalinist repressions. The negative impact of the purge of the officer corps in 1936–8 is also discussed in the context of the initial losses at the beginning of the war. And the fact that returning POWs were sent to the GULAG upon being liberated is openly discussed. However, that these events are 97

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treated seriously and at some length, while similar actions carried out by the Soviets in the Baltics (and elsewhere) are ignored, is further testimony to the fact that the origins of the Myth of 1939–40 lie in the particularly skewed interpretation of the war. The war is presented in such a way that the tremendous sacrifice in the face of Nazi barbarism, in a sense, morally cleanses the Russian people of any responsibility for the Soviet Union’s pre-1941 conduct. At a minimum it seems to ease the obligation to discuss Soviet actions in a more sensitive way. The Myth of 1939–40 and the Great Fatherland War The Myth of 1939–40 is really part of a much larger popular “Myth of the Great Fatherland War,” and thus must be understood in that context. The popular view of the war emphasizes Russian self-righteousness, victimization and unparalleled sacrifice and heroism – a view that has changed only superficially since the Soviet period.86 Yet, this raises an additional question: why does that myth persist? The answer is that the war provides some of the few positive national symbols left to Russia in the wake of the Soviet collapse. The “Myth of 1939–40” persists because telling the truth would shatter this larger “Myth of the Great Fatherland War,” and its positive symbolism along with it. Because events in the Baltics are closely linked to discussions of the origins of the Second World War – an event which is central to Russian national mythology – an objective evaluation of the Soviet role in 1939–40 directly threatens the glorified role of the Russian people in the “Great Fatherland War.” During the Soviet period the war experience was manipulated and exploited as a unifying national symbol. “The roseate version of the war experience,” writes Nina Tumarkin, “had been a carefully orchestrated symphony in a major key, promoting an image of national harmony and unity.”87 As Tillet, Barghoorn and others have shown, the war was at first explicitly, and later implicitly, promoted as a Russian victory – a triumph of the “first among equals in the family of peoples of the USSR.” The term “Soviet people” was often just a thinly veiled euphemism for “Russian.”88 As studies on the development of more extreme forms of nationalism have persuasively argued, nationalist bias in history is common in societies that have suffered a national defeat of some kind.89 In Russia’s case, the “loss” of the Cold War and collapse of its international prestige is more than enough to elicit defensiveness about its past behavior. One could add to that the collapse of Russia’s economic and social infrastructure. Such traumas also lead nations to search for positive historical symbols that are not tied to the previous regime. The History Section of the Russian Academy of Sciences, for example, in a study of Russian history education stated explicitly that history often “emerges as a political weapon, as a means of healing social trauma … .”90 The Second World War in Russia is indeed such a symbol, one of national unity, pride and patriotism. Therefore, it is not totally surprising that the ultimately Russian nationalist bias in the interpretation of the war still persists. 98

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That there is continued sensitivity over the subject of the war, and thus its continuing importance as a sacred national symbol, is demonstrated by recent controversies over the new Russian history textbooks. Some of the least chauvinistic textbooks that have been approved for use in Russia’s schools have in fact been the subjects of the most vociferous attacks. Interestingly, it is almost universally their discussion of the Second World War that critics find objectionable. The most vivid example is the sustained attack against Kreder’s Contemporary History. This book has been vilified both in the national and in regional legislatures for its “unpatriotic,” “anti-Russian” content, particularly in its treatment of the war: too few references to Zhukov are high on the list of complaints.91 While many textbook authors and educators in fact see history education primarily as a tool for patriotic upbringing, and thus are willing to proffer a less critical view of Russian and Soviet history, the content of textbooks clearly reflect the environment in which authors live and work.92 Thus, this particular amnesia is clearly not limited to the classroom. Indeed, as the recent row between Russian and Estonia demonstrates, Russian political elites, in public statements and official documents, continue to purvey a view of these events that mirror the textbook interpretation.

The Myth of 1939–40 and implications for Russian–Baltic relations What, then, are the consequences of Russian amnesia over Soviet actions in the Baltics in 1939–40? While this difference in historical views has not yet led to any violent conflict between Russia and the Baltic states, it clearly casts a shadow over the entire Baltic–Russian relationship. The failure of honest and critical selfevaluation, discussion of historical responsibility, and lack of sensitivity to Baltic sensibilities on this issue has seriously strained relations between Russia and its Baltic neighbors in recent years. The Soviet occupation and its popular and official interpretation lie at the heart of ongoing political conflict between Russia and the Baltic states. The Russian failure to admit its actions in 1939– 40 has exacerbated Baltic–Russian tensions precisely because it is an issue of central importance to the Baltic peoples, their own sense of history and national identity. As a result, Russia’s continuing historical amnesia over the events of 1939– 40 has created at least three problems. First, the amnesia shows great insensitivity and is a perpetual thorn in the side of the Baltic states. The Balts themselves have explicitly linked Russian acknowledgment of its past behavior, and even an apology, to more normal relations. Second, Russia’s amnesia over its role in the Baltics is at the heart of three of the most serious political problems between Russia and its Baltic neighbors today – ethnic-minority issues, border demarcation and regional security. In fact, those problems cannot be truly overcome without Russian (and Baltic) truth-telling. Third, Russian amnesia likely exacerbates extreme antiRussianism and historical mythmaking in the Baltic states. In the following I briefly treat each of these points. 99

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Baltic historical consciousness and the insult of Russian historical amnesia The Soviet annexation and occupation is one of the central foundations of modern national identity in all the Baltic states. It served as the single unifying issue of the Baltic independence movements of the late 1980s. Indeed, one could point to the Lithuanian campaign to force the Soviet government to acknowledge the existence of the secret protocols to the Nazi–Soviet Pact as the immediate spark setting off the “parade of sovereignties” that led to Soviet disintegration in 1991. As Anatol Lieven has written: “In the Baltic the revelation of the full extent of the deportations and the executions of the 1940s played a part in undermining Soviet rule, but the key factor was of course the publication of the truth about the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact and the way the Balts came to be annexed in 1940.”93 That this issue continues to be extremely important in Baltic historical consciousness is demonstrated in a number of ways. All three Baltic states, for example, continue to mark June 14 – the day thousands of Latvians, Lithuanians and Estonians were rounded up and deported to the Soviet Union in 1941 – as a day of national mourning. Most recently in all three countries individuals who participated in the deportations, torture or executions during the Soviet occupation have begun to be put on trial.94 In preparation for future prosecutions, all three Baltic governments agreed in the spring of 1998 to set up commissions to investigate crimes against humanity committed during the Nazi and Soviet occupations.95 Recently, Lithuanian Parliamentary Chairman Vytautas Landsbergis proposed a special parliamentary resolution that would treat the mass deportations of Lithuanians in 1941 and 1949 as a war crime.96 Because of the centrality of the experience of 1939–40, and the Soviet period in general, in modern Baltic consciousness, the Baltic states have repeatedly called on Russia to acknowledge past Soviet crimes against them. In many respects the Baltic states view Russia’s recognition of its past behavior as fundamental to ensuring their sovereignty and independence. In the words of the Estonian foreign ministry: The whole basis of the legal existence of the Republic of Estonia, which the Russian President Boris Yeltsin accepted when he recognized the restoration of Estonian independence in 1991, is the restoration of its independence and the non-recognition of the Soviet Union’s illegal annexation of Estonia.97 At a minimum they consider acknowledgment of Soviet conduct as a necessary prerequisite for normalized relations not only with the Baltic states, but also with the other countries and international organizations. In 1994, for example, Estonia demanded that Russian membership in the Council of Europe be tied to its provision of “a clear assessment of what happened in Estonia in 1940.”98 More recently, at the first meeting of the Estonian–Russian intergovernmental commission in December 1998, Estonian President Lennart Meri told the Russian representative that “the development of Estonian–Russian relations depended on Russia’s [sic] 100

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revising its stance on the 1940 occupation.”99 Further, political parties throughout the Baltic states, especially in Estonia, explicitly include as part of their platforms the demand for Russian recognition of the events of 1939–40 as a basis for normalized relations. As a prerequisite for normal relations, Baltic leaders have also explicitly called for a Russian apology for the “consequences of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact,” much like the one Germany issued in 1994.100 In June 1998, for example, the Estonian delegation to the Council of Europe demanded that “Russia, as the successor of the Soviet Union, … complete the normalization of relations with the Baltic states by issuing an apology to the Baltic states for the fact that the Soviet Union deprived these countries of independence in 1940 and committed major crimes against humanity over the following 50 years.”101 Russian amnesia and Russian–Baltic political conflicts Russia’s amnesia over its role in the Baltics is also at the heart of most of the major political conflicts between Russia and its Baltic neighbors today. Those include the emotional issue of ethnic-minority rights, the ongoing stalemate over border demarcation, and the explosive issue of Baltic regional security. First, the nature of the Soviet occupation, annexation, deportations and subsequent migration of Russians into the Baltic states after the war lies at the very heart of the debate over citizenship laws in Latvia and Estonia. In that debate Balts repeatedly refer to ethnic-Russians as “colonizers” who “trampled on [democratic] rights and values for 50 years.”102 Inter-ethnic relations, and the diplomatic conflicts that result, will very likely remain unresolved as long as Russia continues to ignore the significance of the Sovietization/Russification policies that began in 1940, and the importance of that issue to the Baltic states.103 Second, the on-going border disputes between Russia and the Baltic states are fundamentally grounded in differing interpretations of the nature of Baltic annexations in 1940. In the case of Estonia, the Russians have consistently refused to acknowledge the relevance of the 1920 Tartu Peace Treaty, signed with independent Estonia after the First World War, which delimited the border between the two states.104 That treaty was essentially abrogated upon Estonia’s incorporation into the USSR in 1940, at which time the borders between the newly-created Estonian Soviet Socialist Republic (ESSR) and the Russian Republic (RSFSR) were revised in Russia’s favor. Estonia continues to see that incorporation as an illegal annexation. Hence it sees the treaty as still valid, and believes it should serve as the basis for negotiations on a border agreement with Russia. The Russians, of course, refuse to recognize the 1940 incorporation as an annexation, and do not acknowledge the continuity of the prewar and post-1991 Estonian state. While both sides have initialed a draft border agreement in which the Estonians have given up any territorial claims on Russia, the Estonians still demand Russian acknowledgment of the Tartu Treaty.105 Because the Treaty explicitly documents “Russia’s unconditional recognition of Estonia’s independence, as well as its voluntary pledge not to lay any claims on the Estonian people 101

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or their land in the future,” they feel that Russian recognition is necessary to reaffirm Estonian independence in the eyes of Russia and acknowledge the Soviet period as one of foreign occupation.106 For the Estonians, it would be a meaningful symbolic gesture. By failing to do so, they believe that the “Russian Federation still supports the illegal actions of the Soviet Union’s occupation of Estonia.”107 My intention here is not to make a legal argument about the force of the Tartu Treaty, only to demonstrate that the continued Russian belief in the Myth of 1939–40 has in fact led to serious conflict with Estonia. The failure of Russia to acknowledge the illegality of the occupations and annexations, and hence the validity of the Tartu Treaty, has created the biggest obstacle to the signing of a border agreement. As the Estonian Foreign Ministry has stated, “Russia has not so far given an adequate assessment of the events that took place in 1940 in Estonia, making it very difficult to resolve this issue in the border treaty.”108 Overall, though, the Balts see Russian acknowledgment of their activities in 1940 as a way of demonstrating “mutual respect for the sovereignty of each state.”109 The third political conflict between the Baltic states and Russia with its roots in Russia’s historical amnesia is regional Baltic security and the issue of NATO expansion. The Russian failure to confront the reality of Soviet behavior in 1939–40 creates fundamental mistrust and suspicion on the part of the Baltics. Why are the Baltic states clamoring for NATO expansion given the obvious weakness of Russia and the Russian military, so vividly revealed by the Russian military’s defeat in Chechnya? Clearly the Baltic states desire the European legitimacy that NATO membership will provide. But, it is driven as much, or more, by insecurity, and fear of Russia, borne of fundamental suspicion and mistrust.110 By not acknowledging Soviet crimes in the Baltics, actions which are widely supported by the historical record, the Russians have only exacerbated long-standing and historically-justified suspicions. So, while the Russians may talk of their desire for peaceful relations with the Baltics, the desire for an equal relationship governed by the rule of law and accepted international norms – all of which may in fact be sincere – the failure to acknowledge past Soviet crimes against the Baltic states detracts from the weight of those words. At the heart of the issue, therefore, is not just the reality of Russia’s past behavior, but its failure to confront it.111 Russian amnesia and Baltic extremism The final consequence of Russian amnesia over the events of 1939–40 is that it clearly exacerbates traditional Baltic enmity towards Russia and may in fact contribute to an increase in Baltic whitewashing of its own past. In fact, Baltic history is already infused with a sense of self-righteous victimization that is a breeding ground for pernicious historical mythmaking.112 Much like the Russians, the Balts have been reluctant to confront their own past misdeeds. This is especially true of issues of Soviet and Nazi collaboration in 1939–40 and complicity in deportations, executions and other crimes, especially against Baltic Jews.113 For example, Baltic leaders originally envisioned the recently-formed 102

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Baltic commissions for investigation of crimes committed during the Soviet and Nazi periods as bodies that would examine the Soviet period exclusively. It took intensive lobbying by the international Jewish community for the Baltic presidents not only to agree to include an investigation of crimes committed during the Nazi occupation as part of the mandate of the commissions, but also to ensure that they did not conflate the investigations of the two periods.114 Even in their own treatment of the Nazi–Soviet Pact and the secret protocols, the Balts have tended to view events selectively. For example, while the main goal of the Lithuanian independence movement in the late 1980s was to gain recognition of the illegality of the Pact, few if any Lithuanians at the time, or since, have called for the return of Vilnius to Poland. Recall that the Soviet Union acquired control of the Vilnius region in its invasion of Poland in September 1939. Under the terms of the second secret protocol signed in September 1939 Lithuania was transferred to the Soviet sphere of influence. The Soviet Union then offered the Vilnius region to Lithuania primarily as a bribe to accept a Soviet military presence. While such mythmaking would likely exist in the absence of Russia’s whitewashing of its past misdeeds in the region, continued Russian amnesia in fact makes legitimate challenges to Baltic mythmaking from Russians and others, such as Jews, much more difficult. Further, while the experience of 1939–40, the mass deportations of 1941 and 1949, and the legacy of 50 years of Soviet occupation have made Russia few friends in the Baltic states, Russia’s failure to confront Soviet crimes can only intensify existing anti-Russian feeling and nationalist extremism. Again, while extreme Baltic nationalists would likely exist in any case, continued Russian historical amnesia only increases popular tolerance for such groups and their beliefs. Baltic nationalists have long purveyed their own whitewashed and mythologized views of Baltic history, particularly of the Nazi-occupation period. The backlash against Russian historical amnesia can only increase the legitimacy of such historical views. One example may be found in the recent publication in Latvia of Baigais Gads (The Fearful Year), written by a pro-Nazi publicist and originally published in 1942. The book, which documents crimes committed during the Soviet occupation in 1940–1, is a well-documented work of anti-Soviet, and particularly anti-Semitic, Nazi propaganda.115 Nonetheless, it has achieved some legitimacy in Latvia. Russian attacks on the book ring hollow, though, since Russia’s own whitewashing of the period elicits little sympathy for arguments that the Latvians need to be more truthful about their past. In the end a vicious circle results whereby Russian denial of Soviet misdeeds exacerbates the Baltic peoples’ sense of historical injustice and victimization, encouraging their own defensive and biased interpretation of the past, and increasing tolerance for more extreme anti-Russian views. In turn, Baltic whitewashing of the war period increases Russian ire, especially given the centrality of the “Myth of the Great Fatherland War” in Russian historical consciousness. This only hardens Russia’s resistance to honestly confronting its past, breeding further tension, mistrust and resentment, and leading to increased political conflict.116 103

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Conclusion This chapter has addressed the problem of Russian historical mythmaking and amnesia over the events of 1939–40 in an effort to shed light on the nature of current and future Russo–Baltic relations. It has also intended to highlight the broader significance of mythmaking and historical amnesia as a source of international conflict. Thus, while this study may have focused only on Russian historical views and the Baltic–Russian relationship, the problem is indeed much larger. First, the Myth of 1939–40 as well as the larger Myth of the Great Patriotic War affects not just the Russo–Baltic relationship, but also Russia’s relations with Poland, Finland, Ukraine, Belarus and Moldova. Russian views of the period also directly affect Russian relations with the Balkan states, Europe and Japan, as well as with ethnic groups within Russia, particularly Jews, Volga Germans, Chechens, Ingush and others from Russia’s Caucasus deported en masse during the war. The shadow of the war is indeed long, and its interpretation remains an important influence on Russian foreign and ethnic policy. Second, the problem of historical mythmaking, particularly about the Second World War, is not limited to Russia alone, but is rife throughout the former Soviet region. As argued above, Baltic whitewashing of the wartime past has likely hardened Russia’s refusal to acknowledge Soviet conduct, and vice versa. The same could be said about relations between Lithuania and Poland, Poland and Ukraine, and relations among Lithuania, Latvia, Ukraine, Belarus and Jews in those countries and abroad. The interpretation of the war has certainly been a major source of conflict in the former Yugoslavia as well. Thus, while this study has held the light over one particular country’s view of history, it is hardly a problem exclusive to Russia. Truth-telling: the antidote to historical amnesia Any lasting reconciliation and normalization of relations between Russia and the Baltic states is only possible through truth-telling and honest self-reflection and criticism about the past. For several years post-authoritarian states emerging from years of bloody domestic conflict have realized the need for critical selfexamination as a way of healing social trauma. In some cases this has taken the form of trials, though many states have opted for truth commissions.117 Truthtelling in history has also been the motivating principle of international textbook revision efforts, designed to dampen nationalist bias and extremism in history and ease long-standing tensions between states. Such efforts – international conferences and workshops of historians and educators – which have been carried out regularly in Europe for nearly fifty years, have been remarkably successful.118 The present study of the Russian treatment of the Baltic annexations and the consequences for Russian–Baltic relations has demonstrated the need for truth-telling in history. How to achieve more honest reflection about these events in Russia, and especially in Russian public history education, is a difficult task. National history is a unique national prerogative that is extremely resistant to intervention and manipulation from abroad (the exception, of course, being direct military occupation). 104

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George Soros’s Open Society Institute (OSI) has defied the odds to some degree through its efforts at history textbook publishing in Russia.119 But it has been an effort fraught with controversy. Soros himself and the history textbooks that OSI has published in Russia have been attacked by Russian nationalists and Communists, which have led to books being condemned by regional legislatures and increased self-censorship among some textbook authors.120 An alternative solution may lie in promoting regular historians’ conferences and textbook exchanges. Such efforts, while ubiquitous in Europe since the end of the Second World War, have been few and far between in the former Soviet Union since 1991. Increasingly when such conferences do take place, Baltic historians do not participate. Such efforts need to occur on a regular basis with a sustained professional commitment in order to be successful, something that has been lacking in Russia. In the current economic climate, linking Western foreign aid to Russia, as well as participation in international institutions, to such cooperative truth-telling efforts might be the best approach.121 The potential benefits of such efforts, if Western Europe and Scandinavia are any example, could be quite great. Yet, the problem is much deeper than history textbooks. The historical amnesia that is embodied in Myth of 1939–40 is deeply embedded in Russian historical consciousness and tied directly to the need for post-Soviet national pride. Yet, the best place to begin the truth-telling exercise is with historians and educators, practising good history – and teaching it. The greatest obstacle, however, may be the post-Communist transition itself. As Russians struggle with economic, political, social and ideological disarray they grow increasingly weary of debate over the past at a time when it is critical to confront it. A common refrain is, “Let’s worry about the future, and not dwell on the past.” In the words of the Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman during the January 1998 row with Estonia, “Instead of retrospectively whipping up events of the prewar years on a political level, we prefer to look to the future of our relations, to strengthen trust and mutual relations between the peoples of the Baltic region with concrete deeds.”122 Unfortunately, as has been shown here, words and deeds are inextricably linked. Trust cannot be strengthened unless the Russians acknowledge the past. Until that time Russian–Baltic relations will continue to suffer.

Acknowledgments For their helpful comments I wish to thank David Art, Donald Blackmer, David Brandenberger, Keith Darden, P. R. Goldstone, Tim Snyder, Stephen Van Evera and Inger Weibust.

Notes 1 See BNS, “Russia Claims Soviet Union did not ‘Occupy’ Baltic States in 1940,” BBC Worldwide Monitoring, 19 January 1998; “Newspaper Says Russia Still Claims USSR did not Occupy Baltics,” RFE/RL Newsline, 2(12), 20 January 1998; Il’ia Nikiforov, “V Estonii nedovol’ny mneniem MID RF,” Nezavisimaia gazeta, 4 February 1998, p. 6. The Russian Foreign Ministry considers the letter, written by Deputy Foreign Minister

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Aleksandr Avdeev to Deputy Duma Speaker Sergei Baburin, to be “confidential,” and has therefore not publicly released the letter, even though its contents have been widely quoted in independent Baltic news sources. Interfax, “Russian Foreign Ministry says Baltics Annexation Issue ‘Closed’”, BBC Worldwide Monitoring, 21 January 1998. It is telling that the Foreign Ministry, while neither confirming nor denying the existence of the letter, has essentially defended its general interpretation in subsequent public statements. See Ministerstvo Inostranykh Del RF, Brifing no. 6, 22 January 1998, Zapis’ brifinga, Zam. Direktora Departamenta Informatsii i Pechati RF V. M. Nesterushkina [available on-line at http://www.ln.mid.ru/]. 2 Ministerstvo Inostranykh Del RF, Brifing no. 6. 3 Geoffrey Roberts, The Unholy Alliance: Stalin’s Pact with Hitler (Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1989). 4 “Sekretniyi dopolnitel’nyi protokol k dogovoru o nenapadenii mezhdu Germaniei i Sovetskim Soiuzom, 23 avgusta 1939 g.,” in Ot pakta Molotova-Ribbentropa do dogovora o bazakh (Tallinn: “Periodika,” 1990), pp. 105–6. The English translation can be found in Raymond J. Sontag and James S. Beddie, eds, Nazi–Soviet Relations, 1939–1941 (New York: Didier, 1948), p. 78. 5 “Dogovor o druzhbe i granitse mezhdu SSSR i Germaniei, 28 sentiabria 1939 g.” and “Sekretnyi dopolnitel’nyi protokol k dogovoru o druzhbe i granitse mezhdu SSSR i Germaniei, 28 sentiabria 1939 g.,” in Ot pakta Molotova-Ribbentropa do dogovora o bazakh, pp. 117–19. English translation in Sontag and Beddie, Nazi–Soviet Relations, 1939–1941, pp. 105–7. In the words of historian Michael Carley, “At the end of September, Ribbentrop went again to Moscow to sign further agreements with Molotov, coldly renegotiating their respective spheres of interest in Poland and the Baltic and developing trade relations. Molotov swapped ethnic Polish territory for Lithuania as easily as American kids swapped baseball cards.” Carley, 1939: The Alliance that Never was and the Coming of World War II (Chicago: Ivan R. Lee, 1999), p. 215. 6 R. C. Raack, Stalin’s Drive to the West: The Origins of the Cold War (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1995); Robert C. Tucker, Stalin in Power: The Revolution from Above, 1928–1941 (New York: W. W. Norton, 1990), chs 10–21, esp. pp. 592–607; Gerhard Weinberg, The Foreign Policy of Hitler’s Germany, vol. 1, Diplomatic Revolution in Europe, 1933–1936 and vol. 2, Starting World War II, 1937–1939 (Chicago: Univerity of Chicago Press, 1980); Jiri Hochman, The Soviet Union and the Failure of Collective Security in Europe, 1933–1936 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1984). A more extreme version of this argument – that the Soviet Union was planning preventive war against Germany – has been offered by some Russian historians. See the collected essays in Iu. N. Afanas’ev, ed., Drugaia Voina, 1939–1945 (Moscow: Rossiiskii gosudarstvennyi gumanitarnyi institut, 1996). This thesis has been most popularly offered by Vladimir Rezun, a Soviet-era defector and military intelligence officer who writes under the pseudonym Viktor Suvorov. See his Ledokol: Kto nachal Vtoruyu mirovuyu voinu? (Moscow: Izdatel’skii dom “Novoe vremia,” 1992) and Den’-M: kogda nachalas’ vtoraia mirovaia voina? (Moscow: AO “Vse dlia Vas,” 1994), the former published in English as Icebreaker: Who Started the Second World War? trans. by Thomas B. Beattie (New York: Viking Penguin, 1990). The most thorough critique of Suvorov is Gabriel Gorodetskii, Mif “Ledokola”: nakanune voiny (Moscow: “Progress-Adademiia,” 1995) and Grand Delusion: Stalin and the German Invasion of Russia (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1999). Also see David M. Glantz, Stumbling Colossus: The Red Army on the Eve of World War (Lawrence Kansas: University Press of Kansas, 1998) and Jonathan Haslam, “Soviet–German Relations and the Origins of the Second World War: The Jury is Still Out,” Journal of Modern History, 69 (1997), 796–7. 07 Geoffrey Roberts, The Soviet Union and the Origins of the Second World War: Russo–German Relations and the Road to War, 1933–1941 (London: MacMillan Press, 1995); idem, The Unholy Alliance; idem, “On Soviet–German Relations: The Debate

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08

09 10 11 12 13 14 15

16

17

Continues – A Review Article,” Europe–Asia Studies 50(8) (1998), 1471–512; idem, “The Soviet Design for a Pact with Nazi Germany,” Soviet Studies 44(1) (1992), 57–78; Teddy J. Uldrichs, “Soviet Security Policy in the 1930s,” in Gabriel Gorodetsky, ed., Soviet Foreign Policy, 1917–1991: A Retrospective (London: Frank Cass, 1994). Roberts, The Soviet Union and the Origins, p. 93, argues that “there was no grand plan, or even inclination, for Soviet expansion into Eastern Europe in 1939.” Instead the Soviets reacted to events and exploited advantages that came their way: “The Soviet movement into Eastern Europe was more like a series of improvised and often clumsy reactions to a changing German threat,” he writes “There was no grand plan of Soviet expansion in 1939– 40.” The Soviet Union and the Origins, p. 104. Haslam, “Soviet–German Relations and the Origins”; idem. The Soviet Union and the Struggle for Collective Security in Europe, 1933–39 (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1984); Aleksandr M. Nekrich, Pariahs, Partners, Predators: German–Soviet Relations, 1922–1941, Gregory L. Freeze, trans. (New York: Columbia University Press, 1997). The most notable western historian who holds this view is Michael Carley. See his 1939. Roberts, The Soviet Union and the Origins, p. 103. Raack, Stalin’s Drive to the West, p. 2. A good review of the debates and the current state of knowledge on these events is Geoffrey Roberts, “Soviet Policy and the Baltic States, 1939–1940: A Reappraisal,” Diplomacy and Statecraft, 6(3) (1995), 672–700. See Carl Van Dyke, The Soviet Invasion of Finland, 1939–40 (London: Frank Cass, 1997), pp. 1–2. See Roberts, “Soviet Policy and the Baltic States.” According to Roberts, “[B]y September and October the practical outcome of the agreement was already evident. For the Baltic States it meant being forced to sign mutual assistance treaties with the USSR and the establishment of Soviet military bases on their territory.” Unholy Alliance, p. 162. As John Keegan writes, “There Russia at once capitalized on the terms of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact to demand basing rights for its troops in Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, a manoevre which eventually led to the annexation of all three countries to the Soviet Union in June [sic] 1940.” The Second World War (New York: Penguin, 1989), p. 47. According to Gerhard Weinberg, the Baltic governments signed the mutual assistance agreements “under threats and pressure.” A World at Arms: A Global History of World War II (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), p. 98. Raack, p. 40, describes the Baltic envoys to Moscow as “browbeaten and threatened.” Nekrich, pp. 144–5, uses similar language. More complete detail is found in Roberts, The Soviet Union and the Origins, pp. 105–12; V. Stanley Vardys, “The Baltic States Under Stalin: The First Experiences,” in Kieth Sword, ed. The Soviet Takeover of the Polish Eastern Provinces, 1939–41 (London: MacMillan, 1991), pp. 268–73; Romuald J. Misiunas and Rein Taagepera, The Baltic States: Years of Dependence, 1940–1990, expanded and updated edn (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993), pp. 15–20; I. Joseph Vizulis, Nations Under Duress: The Baltic States (New York: Associated Faculty Press, 1985), pp. 35–40; idem, The Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact of 1939: The Baltic Case (New York: Praeger, 1990), pp. 27–30. Georg von Rauch, The Baltic States: The Years of Independence, 1917–1940, Gerald Onn, trans. (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1995 [1974]), pp. 211–14. See Rein Taagepera, Estonia: Return to Independence (Boulder, CO: Westview, 1993), p. 60; Roberts, Unholy Alliance, p. 161; Vardys, “The Baltic States Under Stalin,” pp. 272–3; Toivo Raun, Estonia and the Estonians (Stanford: Hoover Institution Press, 1987), p. 140. That the Baltic states offered no military resistance to the Soviet demands is not surprising. Aside from the fact that hundreds of thousands of Soviet troops were deployed on the borders of the Baltic states during the negotiations, one only need look at the Soviet attack on Finland in November 1939 after the Finnish

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18

19

20

21

22 23

24

25

government rejected a similar mutual assistance treaty to judge the sincerity of Soviet threats at the time. Even Michael Carley, whose interpretation of the outbreak of war in Europe is largely sympathetic to the Soviet Union, notes, “The Soviet government imposed mutual assistance pacts on the Baltic states in September and October allowing, inter alia, for the stationing of Soviet troops in those countries. The Baltic governments had no choice but to agree to Soviet terms.” Quoted in 1939, p. 215. See Raack, pp. 48–50; Nekrich, pp. 179–80; Roberts, Unholy Alliance, pp. 188–90; Richard Overy, Russia’s War: Blood Upon the Snow (New York: TV Books, 1997), p. 85; Misiunas and Taagepera, pp. 18–22; Vizulis, Nations Under Duress, ch. 4, “The Occupation of the Baltic States by the Soviet Union,” pp. 41–57; Taagepera, pp. 60–4; Rauch, pp. 218–27. On the elections see Taagepera, pp. 60–3; Misiunas and Taagepera, pp. 23–30; V. Stanley Vardys and Judith B. Sedaitis, Lithuania: The Rebel Nation (Boulder, CO: Westview, 1997), pp. 50–3; Vardys, pp. 273–9; Albert N. Tarulis, Soviet Policy Toward the Baltic States, 1918–1940 (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1959), pp. 216–35. Many of these studies tend to rely heavily – though not exclusively – on eyewitness testimony presented in Third Interim Report of the Select Committee on Communist Aggression, 83rd Congress, 2nd Session (Washington, DC: US GPO, 1954). See Jan T. Gross, Revolution from Abroad: The Soviet Conquest of Poland’s Western Ukraine and Western Belorussia (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1988). Unfortunately, there is no single scholarly study on the Soviet occupation and annexation of the Baltics that is the equal, in scope and quality, of Gross’s study. The majority of the literature on this topic published in the 1940s to 1970s was written almost exclusively by Baltic emigres or emigre organizations who harbored obvious political and ideological biases. Therefore, the works cited here have been written in the less ideologically charged atmosphere of the post-Soviet period, and almost exclusively written by professional historians. Despite the national origins of the authors, all make judicious use of evidence and sources, and present sound and dispassionate analyses. While there are points of history that remain open to intrepretation given the state of available data, I have focused on more broad Soviet actions in which there is general agreement among historians, and in which the evidence is rather unambiguous. William J. H. Hough, III, “The Annexation of the Baltic States and its Effect on the Development of Law Prohibiting Forcible Seizure of Territory,” New York Law School Journal of International and Comparative Law, 6(2) (1985). A. E. Gur’ianov, “Masshtaby deportatsii naseleniia v glub’ SSSR v mae-iiune 1941 g.” in Repressii protiv poliakov, pp. 149–53. This was the fourth mass deportation operation in the territories within the “Pact zone” – Eastern Poland (western Ukraine and western Belorussia), the Baltic states, and Bessarabia, including Northern Bukovina. All told, some 90,000 citizens of those regions were deported to camps in the Soviet Union in May–June 1941. Estimates in Misiunas and Taagepera, Appendix 2, “Population Changes, 1939–45: Educated Guesses,” pp. 354–5. For general descriptions, see ibid., pp. 39–43; Taagepera, pp. 66–8; Mass Deportations of Population from the Soviet Occupied Baltic States (Stockholm: Estonian Information Centre and Latvian National Foundation, 1981); Swettenham, pp. 134–42. While Misiunas and Taagepera’s otherwise excellent compilation of statistics fails to make the distinction, it should be noted that these figures likely represent citizens of the various Baltic states and not necessarily ethnic groups. For example, there were likely many Poles among those in Lithuania who were deported and executed in 1940–1. Soviet deportee deaths between 1940 and 1943. Misiunas and Taagepera, Appendix 3, “War and Occupation Deaths, 1940–50: Educated Guesses,” p. 356.

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26 Misiunas and Taagepera, Appendix 3, “War and Occupation Deaths, 1940–50: Educated Guesses,” p. 356. 27 Vardys, “The Baltic States Under Stalin,” p. 286 and p. 290, n. 69. 28 Also includes guerrilla war losses. Misiunas and Taagepera, Appendix 3, “War and Occupation Deaths, 1940–50: Educated Guesses,” p. 356. 29 Misiunas and Taagepera, p. 99, based on Rein Taagepera, “Soviet Collectivization of Estonian Agriculture: The Deportation Phase,” Soviet Studies, 32(3) (July 1980), 379–97. 30 Misiunas and Taagepera, Appendix 5, “Population Changes, 1945–55,” p. 358. 31 Misiunas and Taagepera, Appendix 5, “Population Changes, 1945–55,” p. 358. See also Vardys and Sedaitis, p. 60, pp. 81–4; Taagepera, pp. 70–2, 77–82; Raun, pp. 174–5; Anatol Lieven, The Baltic Revolution: Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and the Path to Independence (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1993), pp. 87–92. 32 George L. Mosse, The Nationalization of Masses: Political Symbolism and Mass Movements in Germany from the Napoleonic Wars through the Third Reich (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1995). The Myth of 1939–40 presented in the textbooks is also captured nicely in the permanent exhibit of the Museum of the Great Fatherland War in Moscow. 33 E. H. Dance, History the Betrayer: A Study in Bias (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1975 [1960]), p. 54. 34 Henry Steele Commager, “Nationalism in Nineteenth-Century American Education,” in The American Mind: An Interpretation of American Thought and Character since the 1880’s (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1950), in Louis L. Snyder, ed., The Dynamics of Nationalism: Readings in its Meaning and Development (Princeton: D. Van Nostrand, 1964), p. 275. 35 Few deny the importance of history education in socializing beliefs about the nation into future generations. In his pioneering work on civic values, Charles Merriam noted “There are, it need not be said, many other types of education than those received through the formal educational system, but this is the most systematic and most highly organized, most consciously contrived for the purpose of influencing directly the next generation.” Charles E. Merriam, The Making of Citizens (New York: Teachers College Press, 1966 [1931]), p. 125. This view has been echoed by others who have examined textbooks and the teaching of history, and has been the driving assumption of much of the work of UNESCO and its predecessor, the IIIC of the League of Nations. See Deborah S. Hutton and Howard D. Mehlinger, “International Textbook Revision: Examples from the United States,” in Volker Berghahn and Hannah Schissler, eds, Perceptions of History: International Textbook Research on Britain, Germany and the United States (Oxford, New York, Hamburg: Berg, 1987), pp. 141–56. 36 I hope to avoid any implication here of an argument of “national character” that is somehow characteristic of all Russians. As in many other societies, particularly multiethnic ones such as Russia, opinions and beliefs are diverse. I am only arguing that there is a strong tendency toward a particular view of these historical events, while recognizing that there are exceptions. I am not in any way arguing that all professional Russian historians of the period proffer the Myth of 1939–40 as I lay it out here. There are certainly many professional historians who do not. 37 The textbooks surveyed here, published between 1994 and 1997, include Russian and world history textbooks recommended for use by the Russian Ministry of Education. Titles include: N. I. Vorozheikina, V. M. Solov’ev, and M. T. Studenikin, Rasskazy po rodnoi istorii, Uchebnik dlia 5 klassa srednei shkoly (Moscow: Prosveshchenie, 1993); A. A. Danilov and L. G. Kosulina, Istoriia Rossii, XX vek, Uchebnaia kniga dlia 9 klassa obshcheobrazovatel’nykh uchrezhdenii, 2nd edn (Moscow: Prosveshchenie, 1996); A. A. Kreder, Noveishaia istoriia, XX vek, Uchebnik dlia osnovnoi shkoly, 3rd edn (Moscow: Tsentr gumanitarnogo obrazovaniia, 1997); V. P. Dmitrenko, V. D. Esakov and V. A. Shestakov, Istoriia Otechestva, XX vek: 11 klass., Uchebnoe posobie

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38

39

40 41 42 43

44 45 46 47

48

dlia obshcheobrazovatel’nykh uchebnykh zavedenii (Moscow: Drofa, 1995); V. P. Ostrovskii and A. I. Utkin, Istoriia Rossii, XX vek: 11 klass, Uchebnik dlia obshcheobrazovatel’nykh uchebnykh zavedenii (Moscow: Drofa, 1995); I. I. Dolutskii, Otechestvennaia istoriia, XX vek, Uchebnik dlia 10–11 klassov obshcheobrazovatel’nykh uchrezhdenii (Moscow: Mnemozina, 1996); O. S. Soroko-Tsiupa, Mir v XX vek, Uchebnoe posobie dlia 10–11 klassov obshcheobrazovatel’nykh uchrezhdenii (Moscow: Prosveshchenie, 1996). This is not an exhaustive list of all textbooks currently available. In fact, a great number of textbooks have been produced since the state monopoly on textbook publishing ended in 1992. Rather, the list reflects only those textbooks that are federally sanctioned, and thus the most widely used in Russia’s schools. Yet, even among this list there are some that are more prevelant than others. I provide a detailed discussion of the rationale for using these particular textbooks in “Nationalism and History Textbooks in Post-Soviet Russia: The Case of the ‘Great Patriotic War’”, paper presented at the 29th National Convention of the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies, Seattle, WA, 21 November 1997. The Soviet interpretation of the war is drawn heavily from Graham Lyons, ed., The Russian Version of the Second World War: The History of the War as Taught to Soviet Schoolchildren (Hamden, CT: Archon Books, 1976), but also relies on a sampling of Russian and World History textbooks written between 1975 and 1990 covering a variety of grade levels: T. C. Golubeva and L. C. Gellershtein, Rasskazy po istorii SSSR dlia 5 klassa, Uchebnik dlia 5 klassa srednei shkoly, 16th edn (Moscow: Prosveshchenie, 1990); P. I. Potemkin et al., Istoriia SSSR (1938–1981), Uchebnik dlia 10 klass srednei shkoly, 12th edn (Moscow: Prosveshchenie, 1983); V. K. Furaev et al., Noveishaia istoriia (1939–1974), Uchebnoe posobie dlia 10 klassa srednei shkoly, 6th edn (Moscow: Prosveshchenie, 1975), and idem, Noveishaia istoriia (1939–1988), Uchebnik dlia 11 klassa srednei shkoly (Moscow: Prosveshchenie, 1989). Because this study examines only Russia’s historical views, and because the general historical consensus is consistent with Baltic views on the period, it runs the risk of appearing – incorrectly – to “endorse” the Baltic view. As is clear in the last part of this paper, I am equally critical of Baltic historical mythmaking, though given the nature of the study and space limitations I do not focus as much attention on the Baltic aspect of the problem as I do on the Russian aspect. Potemkin, pp. 20–1. Ostrovskii, p. 252. Danilov, p. 204. Dmintrenko, p. 280. Soroko-Tsiupa, p. 169, also refers directly to “an ultimatum to Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania to conclude a mutual aid treaty with the Soviet Union and to agree to the disbursement of Soviet garrisons on its territory,” yet concludes matter-of-factly, “these demands were accepted.” Kreder says nothing at all about the fall 1939 agreements. Dmitrenko, pp. 280–1. Dmitrenko, p. 281. Ostrovskii, pp. 252–3. Danilov, p. 204. Only a single textbook, Dolutskii’s Fatherland History, vol. 1, pp. 409–10, provides any kind of objective description of the events, actually using the words “ultimatum” and “occupation.” Yet while it was initially approved by the Ministry of Education for use in schools, for a variety of reasons it is one of the least used eleventh grade textbooks. As will be addressed in greater detail below, it is also one of a few Russian history texts that have been roundly attacked for presenting an “unpatriotic” and “anti-Russian” version of events. Nor is this unique to the Baltic case. The quintessential and most widely known Soviet atrocity committed in Eastern Poland in 1940 – the Katyn massacre of nearly 4,000

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49

50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58

59 60

61

Polish officers – receives only cursory, if any, mention. The only textbooks of the ones discussed here that even mention Katyn are Ostrovskii, p. 282 and Soroko-Tsiupa, p. 169. Of course, the 4,000 deaths at Katyn are only a drop in the bucket. The mass graves at Kurapaty near Minsk, for example, which hold the remains of an estimated 300,000 victims of NKVD executions committed in 1940–1, are not mentioned in any textbook. Dmitrenko, p. 391. Danilov and Kosulina’s text, p. 261, at least specifically mentions the Balts among other deported peoples, but says little else: “One of the first strikes was carried out against servicemen, the majority of whom (about 2 million) were sent off to camps in Siberia and Ukhti after their liberation from fascist slavery. ‘Foreign elements’ from the Baltic republics, Western Ukraine and Belorussia were also exiled there.” Dmitrenko, p. 279. They do note that the exception is, of course, Finland. Danilov, p. 204. Ostrovskii, p. 324. Though the use of passive constructions is common in the Russian language, textbook authors frequently use direct constructions that convey agency when they wish to do so. Danilov, p. 262. Based on Soviet documents, among those targeted for arrest and deportation in addition to anti-Soviet political activists: ethnic Poles, philatelists and Esperantists. Misiunas and Taagepera, p. 41. Ostrovskii, p. 250. Lyons, p. 10. The Soviet textbooks also make the argument that the expansion of the western borders benefited the USSR, but it is of course not explicitly linked to the secret protocols. See, for example, Potemkin, p. 18. Danilov, p. 204. The logic of this statement is also a bit puzzling since it seems to ignore the September 1939 agreement, which created a common border between the Soviet Union and Germany. In light of that agreement, it is unclear how the authors could argue that the Soviet Union removed itself as an “initial” point of attack. On the contrary, the September treaty made the Soviet Union a direct point of German attack to the east. Soroko-Tsiupa, p. 170. Dmitrenko, p. 277. Danilov and Kosulina, p. 204, offer an interesting additional security argument: that the Baltic states themselves were somehow a military threat to the Soviet Union (despite the huge Soviet military presence there): “In the summer of 1940 the Soviet government, making use of favorable foreign conditions, presented the Baltic countries with a demand to introduce additional forces, a change of governments, which were hostilely inclined toward the USSR, and the carrying out of speedy elections for parliament.” Emphasis added. Jack Snyder, Myths of Empire: Domestic Politics and International Ambition (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1991). The security argument ignores the long-term implications of the Pact on Soviet security. The Nazi–Soviet Pact and the subsequent annexation of the Baltic states helped undermine the legitimacy and eventually the territorial integrity of the Soviet Union in the late 1980s. It is therefore ironic that today Russian nationalists and communists, who both see the loss of the Russian/Soviet empire in 1991 as one of the greatest blows to Russian security in the twentieth century, fail to see the Pact and the 1940 annexations as a central cause of that “disaster.” As John Hiden argues, “From the vantage point of 1990, however, the 1939 agreements can be seen to have brought no lasting advantage to either Germany or to the Soviet Union. This had of course long been clear in the case of the former. The latter, too is now reaping the rewards of its cynical indifference to the independent Baltic republics on the eve of the Second World War.” “Introduction: Baltic Security Problems Between the Two World Wars,” in John Hiden and Thomas Lane, eds, The Baltic and the Outbreak of the Second World War (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), p. 20.

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62 The one exception to this interpretation is offered by Kreder’s Contemporary History, p. 127. He writes: “The secret protocol was witness to the fact that the USSR became a co-participant in the subsequent redrawing of the map of Eastern Europe. Hitler’s decisive decision to begin aggression against Poland became an indirect result of the signing of these documents.” However, like Dolutskii’s Fatherland History, Kreder’s textbook has been vociferously attacked by Communists and nationalists in the state Duma, as well as regional legislatures, and by public intellectuals and veteran’s organizations for being “anti-patriotic” and “anti-Russian.” 63 As Roberts writes, “The annexation of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania that summer was the combined result of Hitler’s military successes, Moscow’s perception that there was an inter-Baltic conspiracy directed against its interests, the activities of a militant alliance of workers, peasants and intellectuals, and leftist fantasies that a pro-Soviet revolution was sweeping the region.” The Soviet Union and the Origins, p. 121. 64 Danilov, p. 204. 65 Dmitrenko, p. 279. The emphasis on “reunification” is made especially strongly in discussion of the Soviet annexations of Western Ukraine, Western Belorussia and Bessarabia. For example, “In September 1939 [Western Ukraine and Western Belorussia], which went to Poland according to the Riga Treaty of 1921, were joined with the Soviet Union. The city of Vilnius, which was part of Western Belorussia, was transferred to Lithuania. The liberated regions – Western Belorussia and Western Ukraine – reunited with the Belorussian and Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republics.” Dmitrenko, p. 277. Emphasis added. Also Danilov, p. 204. 66 Soroko-Tsiupa, p. 160. 67 Ostrovskii, p. 250. 68 Lyons, p. 10. Also Golubeva, p. 191. 69 For a more accurate view of British policy on the eve of the war see Donald Cameron Watt’s How War Came: The Immediate Origins of the Second World War, 1938–1939 (New York: Pantheon, 1989). 70 Potemkin, pp. 16–17. Also, Furaev (1989), pp. 8–9; idem (1975), pp. 14–15. 71 Dmitrenko, p. 274. Also see Soroko-Tsiupa, pp. 158–60. According to Danilov, p. 203, the talks with the allies “practically deadlocked” because “the western powers tried to thrust on the USSR one-sided military obligations.” 72 One sees this view in the real world as well. In the words of the Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman during the January 1998 row with Estonia, “It would be naive to hope that Russia could take all responsibility for the acts committed by the pre-war Soviet Union.” The problem, of course, is that Russia seeks to take none of the blame. Ministerstvo Inostranykh Del RF, Brifing no. 6. 73 As noted above, alternative explanations are offered by Roberts, Nekrich, Raack, Weinberg, Tucker, Hochman, Haslam and Uldrichs. Also John Hiden, “Introduction: Baltic Security Problems Between the Two World Wars,” in John Hiden and Thomas Lane, eds, The Baltic and the Outbreak of the Second World War (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), p. 20. 74 Danilov, p. 220. 75 Dmitrenko, p. 309. 76 Dmitrenko, pp. 353–4. Emphasis added. 77 This is the title of the chapter on the “Great Fatherland War,” in Vorozheikina, Rasskazy po rodnoi istorii, p. 214. 78 Dmitrenko, p. 371. 79 Danilov, p. 206. 80 Ostrovskii, p. 288. The texts are also marked by the omission of any discussion of the persecution of Jews and the Holocaust. The absence of “Jews” in Danilov’s enumeration of victims quoted above is noteworthy. In general, their descriptions of German atrocities convey very strongly the sense that the Russian and Slavic peoples alone

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81 82

83 84 85 86

87

88

were Hitler’s target of destruction. As Dmitrenko, p. 302, notes: “A danger of physical extermination hung over the Slavic and other peoples of the Soviet Union.” The destruction of the Jews, however, or the Holocaust itself is never mentioned – even as one of several of Hitler’s goals in the east. Indeed, the Soviet-era texts often make more references, albeit innocuously, to Jews and death camps, than the current texts. The only exception is Soroko-Tsiupa’s world history, p. 173, which states: “In Poland, the occupiers built special ‘death camps’ where ‘undesirable’ populations, primarily Jews and Slavs, should be destroyed. By the end of the war more than 11 million people were exterminated in these camps (Oswiecim, Majdanek, Treblinka and others).” When Jews are mentioned, as in Ostrovskii’s History of Russia, p. 286, the emphasis is put on the even greater suffering of the Russian people: “Before the beginning of the evacuations in the occupied territories there was put the task of exterminating 30 million Russians, 5–6 million Jews.” Dmitrenko makes no reference at all to death camps or concentration camps in the east, nor any reference to the persecution of the Jews. However, he does reprint in the “documents and materials” section at the end of his final chapter on the war, p. 374, an order of 2 August 1941 from the city of Vilnius outlining all the prohibitions against the city’s Jews. However, this must strike a young reader as odd, since it does not refer to any previously discussed material, is completely out of context, and without any commentary. It is especially puzzling that an explicit mention of the Holocaust is absent in the current textbooks, considering the frequent discussions in the Russian press of the fear of rising anti-Semitism in post-Soviet Russia. Ostrovskii, p. 288. Dmitrenko, pp. 363–4. Emphasis added. David Laitin in his research on the Russianspeaking population in the former-Soviet Republics also found this to be a commonly held view in Estonia. See Identity in Formation: The Russian-speaking Populations in the Near Abroad (Ithaca: Cornell Univerity Press, 1998), p. 3. Ostrovskii, p. 257. Dmitrenko, p. 309. Dmitrenko, p. 386. I address this at length in “Nationalism and History Textbooks in Post-Soviet Russia,” op cit., as well as in “Truth-telling and Mythmaking in Post-Soviet Russia: Pernicious Historical Ideas, Mass Education and Interstate Conflict (PhD Dissertation, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2001). Nina Tumarkin, The Living and the Dead: The Rise and Fall of the Cult of World War II in Russia (New York: Basic Books, 1994), p. 189. Also pp. 129–57. On the importance of the Second World War in Russian national consciousness, also see George Gibbian, “World War 2 in Russian National Consciousness: Pristavkin (1981–7) and Kondratyev (1990), in John Garrard and Carol Garrard, eds, World War 2 and the Soviet People: Selected Papers from the Fourth World Congress for Soviet and East European Studies, Harrogate, 1990 (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1993), pp. 147–59. As Tumarkin, p. 37, notes, during the Soviet period Victory Day, celebrating the end of the Second World War in Europe, “was the only real, official holiday. It was both the tool of propagandists touting its triumphs and a memorial day for millions of relatives and friends of the war dead” (emphasis in original). As the sub-title of her book implies, Tumarkin argues that the distinctive Cult of the Great Patriotic War is now a thing of the past. While I agree that the “cult,” as she describes it, has indeed passed, the particular view of the war as purveyed through mass public history education, has in fact changed only superficially. Lowell Tillett, The Great Friendship: Soviet Historians on the Non-Russian Nationalities (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1969), pp. 58–83; Frederick C. Barghoorn, Soviet Russian Nationalism (New York: Oxford University Press, 1956), pp. 22, 26–66.

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89 See, for example, Stephen Van Evera, “Hypotheses on Nationalism and War,” International Security 18(4) (Spring, 1994), pp. 5–39; Louis Namier, “Pathological Nationalisms,” Manchester Guardian, April 26, 1933, in Snyder, The Dynamics of Nationalism, p. 53; Charles A. Kupchan, The Vulnerability of Empire (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1994), p. 503. 90 “Materialy k obsuzhdeniiu novoi kontseptsii prepodavaniia istorii,” Prepodavanie istorii v shkole 4 (1993), p. 68. Volker Berghahn and Hanna Schissler have noted that, “Whoever engages in this kind of analysis will find that stereotypes and prejudices can be very resistant to advances in historical knowledge, and that they tend in any case to be related to the need of the society in question to find points of self-orientation in the process of its own development.” “Introduction: History Textbooks and Perceptions of the Past,” in Berghahn and Schissler, eds, Perceptions of History, p. 15. 91 The Voronezh regional (oblast’) legislature voted to recommend that Kreder’s textbook be banned from the region’s schools. See Tatiana Maslikova, “Patriotism po Sorosu i Surkovu prodolzhaem diskussiiu: kto i po kakim uchebnikam prepodaet istoriiu nashim detiam,” Rossiiskaia gazeta, 19 November 1997; “Urok istorii,” Rossiiskaia gazeta, 12 November 1997; “Chinovniki derutsia u shkolnikov chuby treshchat,” Rossiiskaia gazeta, 5 November 1997; Olga Rachkova and Vladimir Dan’shin, “Uchebnik po istorii: Uchebnik ‘Noveishei istorii’ propal v istoriiu,” Rossiiskaia gazeta, 31 October 1997; “Eto my uzhe prokhodili,” Izvestiia, 30 October 1997; Marina Latysheva, “Istoriia po-voronezhski,” Segodnia, 23 June 1998. Since 1996 other textbooks have been attacked by federal legislators, intellectual and professional organizations. The target of these attacks have been primarily those textbooks written with the financial assistance of George Soros’s Open Society Institute: Kreder’s Contemporary History, Dolutskii’s two-volume Fatherland History, and I. I. Ionov’s Russian Civilization: Early 9th–20th Century (Moscow: Prosveschenie, 1995). For more on this see Natal’ia Buniakina, “‘Perekhodnye’ Uchebniki,” Uchitel’skaia gazeta, 3 December 1996, p. 14; Aleksandr Sedunov, “Ministr Obrazovaniia – v Sovet Bezopasnosti,” Uchitel’skaia gazeta, 23 July 1996, p. 43; Irina Ovchinnikova, “Duma obsuzhdaet shkol’nye uchebniki po istorii,” Pedagogicheskii kaleidoskop, November 1996, p. 3; idem, “Kandidat v prezidenty RF Gennadii Ziuganov zaiavil v Sankt-Peterburge o soderzhanii shkol’nykh uchebnikov,” Izvestiia, 30 April 1996, p. 1; Elena Sirotkina, “Kak odin deputat prochital uchebnik istorii i chto iz etogo vyshlo,” Pervoe sentiabria, 21 November 1996, p. 1; Stepan Petrov, “Ozhvachennye: Natsionalisty vyshli na bor’bu s bukvarem,” Moskovskii komsomolets, 26 April 1996, p. 1; Nina Shirokova, “Diversant Soros pronik v russkuiu shkolu,” Literaturnaia Gazeta 18–19, 1 May 1996, p. 1; Petr Parfenepkov and Evgeniia Mar’ianova, “Nuzhny li uchebniki Fonda Sorosa?” Pravda, 29 May 1996, p. 4; Natal’ia Buniakina, “Novaia ugroza bezopasnosti Rossii,” Uchitel’skaia Gazeta, 11 June 1996, p. 4; Anatolii Veslo, “Duma uberezhet shkol’nye posobiia ot tletvornogo vliianiia Zapada,” Segodnia, 8 July 1995, p. 2; Irina Ovchinnikova, “Itog usilii Dumy i Pravitel’stva: Uchit’sia budem bez uchebnikov,” Izvestiia, 7 July 1995, p. 1. 92 This conclusion is based on numerous interviews with textbook authors and others involved in textbook writing, publishing and approval, as well as on limited surveys of historians and educators from St Petersburg and Moscow, conducted by the author in 1996 and 1997. See also Ministerstvo Obrazovaniia Rossiiskoi Federatsii, Reshenie kollegii, “O strategii razvitiia istoricheskogo i obshchestvovedcheskogo obrazovaniia v obshcheobrazovatel’nykh uchrezhdeniiakh,” No. 24/1, 28 December 1994. Also of interest is A. Golovatenko, “Istoriia v skhemakh i stereotipakh,” Pervoe sentiabria, 4 February 1997, p. 2, who argues that the focus on the patriotic role of history education has distorted the content of textbooks and history education in general. 93 Anatol Lieven, The Baltic Revolution: Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and the Path to Independence (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1993), p. 222. See also Nadia Diuk

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94

95

96

97 98 99 100 101

and Adrian Karatnycky, New Nations Rising: The Fall of the Soviets and the Challenge of Independence (New York: John Wiley and Sons, 1993), ch. 4: “The Baltic States: Vanguard of Independence,” esp. pp. 113–15; Gail W. Lapidus, “From Democratization to Disintegration: The Impact of Perestroika on the National Question,” in Lapidus and Victor Zaslavsky with Philip Goldman, eds, From Union to Commonwealth: Nationalism and Separatism in the Soviet Republics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), pp. 49–50. For Latvia see “Latvia Detains War Crimes Suspect,” Baltic News Service, 17 August 1998; Interfax, “Latvia: Former Pro-Soviet Unit Commander Charged with War Crimes,” BBC Worldwide Monitoring, 23 August 1998; “Around 30 Gather Outside Prison in Latvia to Demand Release of Kononov,” Baltic News Service, 9 November 1998; “Latvia’s Red Partisan Kononov’s Case Sent to Court,” Baltic News Service, 22 December 1998. For Estonia see “Court Process Over Alleged Deporter Starts,” ETA Estonian News Agency, 7 May 1998; “Estonia begins First Trial over man Accused of Soviet-era Deportations,” Estonian Television, 7 May 1998, BBC Worldwide Monitoring, 7 May 1998. For Lithuania see “First Genocide Trial Concluded in Lithuania,” OMRI Daily Digest, no. 16, 23 January 1997. The commissions were set up as much to satisfy Jewish critics of Baltic whitewashing of their wartime collaboration with the Nazis and their role in the murder and deportations of Baltic Jews, as it was to investigate Soviet atrocities in 1939–40 and in the postwar period. Estonia was the first to establish an international commission, which has recently begun work. See “Estonian Panel Starts Probe of Nazi, Soviet Crimes,” Russia Today, 25 January 1999; “International Committee to be Formed to Investigate Crimes Against Humanity,” ETA Estonian News Agency, 13 May 1998; “Estonia to Form Int’l Commission to Look into Crimes Against Humanity,” Baltic News Service, 13 May 1998; “President called for Investigation Commission,” ETA Estonian News Agency, 14 May 1998; “Estonian WWII Soldiers want their Representative in Commission,” Baltic News Service, 28 May 1998. Lithuania set up its commission in September 1998 and began working in mid-November. Interfax, “Lithuanian President Forms Commission to Evaluate War and Soviet Regime Crimes,” BBC Worldwide Monitoring, 8 September 1998; Lithuanian Radio, 14 January 1999, “Israeli Speaker Urges Lithuania to Separate Probes into Nazi, Soviet Crimes,” BBC Worldwide Monitoring, 14 January 1999. Latvia established a national historians’ commission in November 1998. Latvian Radio, 13 November 1998, “Latvian President and Premier Set Up Historians’ Commission,” BBC Worldwide Monitoring, 13 November 1998. The resolution entitled, “On Declaring the Mass Exile of Lithuanians to the USSR a War Crime,” reads, “The mass repressions, which were carried out against Lithuanian residents by the government of the USSR, the exile from their homeland of numerous families with mothers, children and the elderly, are especially severe war crimes, with the characteristics of genocide.” “Landsbergis Proposes Evaluating Genocide by Soviets as War Crime,” Baltic News Service, 22 May 1998. “Russia does not Intend to Turn to International Court Over Border Dispute,” Eesti Ringvaade, 4(33.2), Internet edn (18–21 August 1994). Emphasis added. See “Foreign Minister and CE Meeting,” Eesti Ringvaade, 4(19.2), Internet edn (9–11 May 1994). “Tallinn Meeting Hailed as ‘Breakthrough’ in Estonian–Russian Ties,” RFE/RL Newsline, 2(234) (7 December 1997). See “Celebrations and Ceremonies Mark the Symbolic End of World War II,” Eesti Ringvaade, 4(35.1), Internet edn (29–31 August 1994). Estonian Radio, 23 June 1998, “Estonia Pushes for Russian Apology at Council of Europe,” BBC Worldwide Monitoring, 24 June 1998.

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102 Arvydas Barzdukas, Letter to the Editor, Washington Post, 18 May 1998, p. A16. See also “Nation Re-Building and Political Discourses of Identity Politics in the Baltic States,” in Graham Smith, et al., eds, Nation-Building in the Post-Soviet Borderlands: The Politics of National Identities (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), pp. 105–7; Jeff Chinn and Robert Kaiser, Russians as the New Minority: Ethnicity and Nationalism in the Soviet Successor States (Boulder: Westview Press, 1996), pp. 93–123. 103 It is important to note that the history textbooks discussed in this paper are also widely used in Russian-language schools in the Baltic states. These ideas therefore are not limited to Russians who live in Russia, but are purveyed among the Russian population inside the Baltic states as well. 104 This position was most recently reiterated by the Russian ambassador to Estonia. See Estonian Radio, 3 February 1999, “Russian Ambassador Says 1920 Border Treaty with Estonia Obsolete and Void,” BBC Worldwide Monitoring, 3 February 1999. 105 See Anne Kuorsalo, “Estonia Yielding on Borders Established by Treaty of Tartu,” Suomen Kuvalehti, 19 December 1997, pp. 20–3, in FBIS Daily Report, FBISSOV-98-028 (28 January 1998). 106 See Interfax, “75th Anniversary of Tartu Treaty Observed,” FBIS Daily Report, FBIS-SOV-95-023 (2 February 1995). In the words of the Estonian Foreign minister, while many of the treaty’s clauses are no longer valid, the treaty nonetheless has “moral importance.” 107 “Russia Does not Intend … .” The dilemma of the Estonian position, however, is that while they claim only to want Russian recognition of the Tartu Treaty for its symbolic value, and have in fact rejected any territorial claims on Russia, Russian recognition would be a de facto acknowledgment of the prewar border. See Interfax, “Official Declares Tartu Treaty With Estonia ‘Invalid’”, FBIS Daily Report, FBIS-SOV-95-023 (2 February 1995). Further, some Russians argue that if Russia acknowledges the illegal annexation of Estonia, then the Russian-speaking population that moved there before 1991 would be reclassified as “occupiers,” and immediately deported. See Nikiforov, “V Estonii nedovol’ny mnenem MID RF.” 108 Estonian Foreign Ministry, Press Spokesman’s Office, Release no. 2-1, 26 January 1996 [http://www.vm.ee/eng/pressreleases/press/1996/960126%5F2i.html]. 109 Quoted in “Estonian Deputy Speaker says Relations with Moscow can Improve, Taking into Account the Tartu Peace Treaty,” Eesti Ringvaade, 4(37.1), Internet edn (15–18 September 1994). The Estonia parliamentary deputy speaker called on the Russians to abandon their claim that “the Baltic states were not annexed, but instead … [willingly chose] to walk in between the claws of the Soviet bear.” He stressed that “agreeing with the position of the rest of the world that the Baltic states were occupied by the Soviet Union would not mean sharing the guilt of the Stalinist regime, nor would it mean financial obligations, ‘but would certainly be an act of moral courage and foresight to agree with the principles of justice and equality.’” 110 See Kuorsalo, “Estonia Yielding … .” 111 This dynamic is also seen in East Asia. Japan’s failure to confront its wartime past has led to a great deal of mistrust of Japan among its East Asian neighbors. See, for example, “Let Japan Sail Forth: The Restraints on Japan’s Armed Forces are no Longer Appropriate to Asia’s Circumstances,” The Economist, 27 February 1999, p. 17. On Japan’s continued historical amnesia and whitewashing of the war years see Ian Buruma, Wages of Guilt: Memories of War in Germany and Japan (New York: Meridian, 1994); John Lie, “War, Absolution, and Amnesia: The Decline of War Responsibility in Postwar Japan,” Peace and Change, 16(3) (1991). 112 On Baltic victimization and anti-Russianism see Romuald J. Misiunas, “National Identity and Foreign Policy in the Baltic States,” in S. Frederick Starr, ed., The Legacy

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of History in Russia and the New States of Eurasia (Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe, 1994), pp. 98–102. On the revision of Estonian history in the post-Soviet period see Sirkka Ahonen, Clio Sans Uniform: A Study of Post-Marxist Transformation of the History Curricula in East Germany and Estonia, 1986–1991 (Helsinki: Suomalainen Tiedeakatemia, 1992), pp. 114–25. This issue has come to the fore in Latvia over the “March 16” controversy: Latvia has made March 16 a national holiday in honor of Latvian soldiers who fought in the Second World War, the same day that veterans of Latvian Waffen-SS Legions commemorate their first battle against the Red Army in 1943. “Latvian Lawmakers Vote to Keep Soldiers Day,” RFE/RL Newsline, 3(45) (5 March 1999); Latvian Radio, 7 April 1998, “Latvian President Says Recent Events Show Vigilance and Mutual Tolerance Needed,” BBC Worldwide Monitoring, 7 April 1998; “Raining on Latvia’s SS Parade,” Transitions, Internet edn, May 1998. A similar event is also held in Estonia. See Note 89 above, also “Baltic Presidents to Look Into Nazi and Soviet Crimes,” ETA Estonian News Agency, 12 May 1998; “AJCommittee Works with Estonian, Latvian and Lithuanian Governments to Establish Commissions to Investigate the Holocaust and Post-War Periods,” PR Newswire, 14 May 1998; “U.S. Politicians Welcome Estonia’s War Crime Investigation Body Plan,” Baltic News Service, 27 June 1998. See BNS, “Moscow Denounces Republication of Book on War in Latvia,” BBC Worldwide Monitoring, 14 January 1999; Leonid Stonov, “Falsified History: The Legacy of Nazism in Contemporary Latvia,” UCSJ Position Paper, Union of Councils for Soviet Jews, 12 March 1999, available at: http://www.fsumonitor.com/stories/latvia399.shtml. That views found in the latest generation of Russian history textbooks themselves could influence relations between Balts and ethnic Russians within the Baltic states is easier to understand in light of the fact that these textbooks are the same ones that are widely used in Russian-language schools in the Baltic states. See Prescilla B. Hayner, “Fifteen Truth Commissions – 1974 to 1994: A Comparative Study,” Human Rights Quarterly 16 (1994), pp. 597–655; Carlos Santiago Nino, Radical Evil on Trial (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1996); Neil J. Kritz, ed., Transitional Justice, 3 vols (Washington DC: U.S. Institute of Peace, 1995). On international textbook revision activities in Europe see “Introduction: History Textbooks and Perceptions of the Past,” in Berghahn and Schissler, eds, Perceptions of History; Dance, History the Betrayer; Otto Ernst Schüddekopf, “History of Textbook Revision 1945–1965,” in Schüddekopf et al., eds, History Teaching and History Textbook Revision (Strasbourg: Council for Cultural Co-operation of the Council of Europe, 1967), pp. 11–41; idem, “The Lesson Learned from History and History Textbook Revision,” in ibid., pp. 131–85; Haakon Vigander, “History Textbook Revision in the Nordic Countries,” in ibid., pp. 43–64. On Soros’s earlier efforts see Otto Latsis, Transformatsiia gumanitarnogo obrazovaniia v Rossii: Na puti k novoi shkole (Moscow: Interpraks, 1995). Some history textbook authors that I interviewed in 1996 admitted that they selfcensored themselves in order to meet the tacit demands of publishers and the “Expert Council” which evaluates textbooks for official Ministry recommendation. For more on this see David Mendeloff, “Demystifying Russian Textbooks,” ISRE Newsletter on Russian and Eurasian Education, 6(1) (Spring 1997). Stephen Van Evera advocated such linkage in 1990. While it may run the risk of eliciting a nationalist backlash in Russia, such backlash is already occurring to some degree, so there would seem little to lose by advocating such an approach today. See Van Evera, “Primed for Peace: Europe After the Cold War”, International Security, 15(3) (Winter 1990/91), 52–3. Ministerstvo Inostranykh Del RF, Brifing no. 6.

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7 COMING TO TERMS WITH THE PAST Memories of displacement and resistance in the Baltic states Dovile Budryte

Through war and displacement, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia lost about one-third of their populations. During 1940–1 and 1944–53, the Soviet Union deported about 132,000 people from Lithuania, 135,000 from Latvia, and at least 40,455 from Estonia. The homes of those killed or deported from the Baltic states were occupied by newcomers from other parts of the Soviet Union. After having suffered such massive losses, societies and individuals belonging to many different cultures come up with different ways to cope with what has happened. Such traumatic events usually become the focus of commemorative practices supported by the state; they find their place in historical writings and are carefully preserved in personal archives. This chapter seeks to answer the question: how is the memory of the war and violent resettlements that have taken place in the Baltic states kept alive? Focusing on experiences of resettlement which have crystallized into public debates, written forms, scholarly research and sustained public acts, this chapter retells some of the stories of displacement and identifies the forms in which this experience has asserted itself in the public sphere. In the case of the Baltics, however, it would be a mistake to focus exclusively on the elitist academic and literary modes of transmission, such as formal, state-supported historiography, intellectual biography or widely recognized poetry and literature. Personal narratives matter as well. Vieda Skultans has argued: Personal narrative has a special importance in societies which fail to secure the moral allegiance of their members. Where social values and meanings are not accepted, individuals may engage in a personal search for meaning with a narrative past. This has of course, special relevance for the countries of eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. In Latvia severance from the Soviet Union and the breaking up of old 118

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structures have released a deluge of personal memoirs, life histories and diaries. Similar literary developments have taken place in Poland and other eastern European countries.1 Lithuania and Estonia are no exception. Personal narratives were critically important for the Balts prior to the reestablishment of independence in 1991. When Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia were part of the Soviet Union, the state, aided by collaborating historians, was in charge of writing history. During the time of national reawakening in 1988–91, people finally gained enough confidence to speak about their experiences of displacement. Many of them had never spoken about their experiences openly before. At that time former deportees opened their “private museums” and began sharing some of their treasured belongings – photographs, songs, letters, poems and other reminders of the war and displacement with the public. After independence was reestablished, a blending of the personal memories of the displaced and state-supported history occurred. State-supported museums and research institutes began to collect and publish personal narratives and memoirs of the displaced. Many personal belongings from the times of the war and displacement were put into public museums. Similar developments, however, seem to be quite common in societies which have experienced massive dislocations of people. In such societies, during the time of upheaval, personal archives are often reduced in number, since those who are dragged away to be deported usually have no time to take their precious personal belongings, such as photographs, family memorabilia or letters with them. In the places of displacement – Vorkuta and Igarka in particular – photographs or letters were much more difficult to preserve than in peaceful societies. Therefore, as Stephan Feuchtwang wrote, public museums and archives created after the experience of displacement containing such items become much more significant to the survivors and their descendants as “a point from which interpersonal transmission begins again, supplementing the few possessions, if any, which refugees have managed to preserve.”2 On the other hand, retelling the stories of displacement and resistance, reimbursing the victims and their survivors, punishing or granting amnesty to the guilty after the “organized oblivion” of a totalitarian state3 becomes a function of a newly recreated democratic polity. Thus, an emerging state tries to create a shared sense of history among its populace. Consequently, this chapter is divided into four sections: (1) Historical background, which covers the waves of displacements that were carried out in the territory of Lithuania during 1940–52, (2) Memory in the repressed societies, (3) Historical memory emerges, and (4) Competing memories and attempts to restore justice after the recreation of the states. The chapter concludes by exposing the “unhealed wounds” – by underlining the most painful and most controversial aspects of the acts of remembrance which are likely to remain the focus of scholarly research along with public and private debates in the future and by reflecting on the lessons which are suggested by the Baltic experience. 119

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Historical background It is not easy to determine the full scope and exact details of forced resettlements and war-related losses in Lithuania because there was no official census held during the period 1923–59 in Lithuania, 1934–59 in Estonia and 1935–59 in Latvia. Recently discovered numbers of the deportations by the Soviet Union (see Table 7.1), however, make the picture a bit clearer. In addition to the deportations carried out by the Soviet Union, there were at least four waves of resettlements and forced migration before and after the Second World War. In winter 1939–40, approximately 16,346 people who identified themselves as Germans left Estonia, 48,641 departed from Estonia, and over 52,000 departed from Lithuania to Germany.4 Another wave of deportations occurred the same year, after Germany had invaded the Soviet Union. Baltic Jews, Gypsies, Communists and other “undesirable elements” were deported to ghettos and concentration camps. During the period of German occupation, thousands of Balts were taken to Germany as

Table 7.1 Number of people deported from the Baltic states by the Soviet Union, 1941–53 Mass deportations, 13–14 June 1941 Estonia At least 10,605 (Salo) Population in (July 1940 to 22 1934: 1,126,000 August 1941) of which 400–500 were Jews.a 13–14 June: 8,079 (Salo)

Mass deportations, 1948–9

Total, 1940–53

20,702 (Kivimaa)

At least 40,455 (Memento cards)

Latvia 16,563 (War Museum) 25–9 March 1949: Approximately Population in of which 4,000–5,000 42,133 (Spridzans) 135,563 (War 1935: 1,905,000 were Jews (Ezergailis) 42,231 (Riekstins) Museum and Butkus) Lithuania 18,093 (Grunskis) 22–7 May 1948: Approximately Population in 19,285 (Kerulis) 41,000 (LGGRTC) 132,000 1923: 2,620,000 of which 1,000 were 25–9 March 1949: (LGGRTC) Jews (Anusauskas) 32,735 (NKVD) 1939–53: 128,068 or 6,000–7,000 were (Grunskis) Jews (Atamukas)b Notes Data for the period 1941, when the number of deportees was recorded by the Red Cross, is the most reliable. The numbers for the postwar years are less reliable. a Salo and Kerulis used the lists of deportees compiled during the German occupation, and the Nazi authorities had forbidden mention of the deportees of Jewish descent. b Anusauskas’ number of Lithuanian Jews deported in June 1941, is based on the data compiled by the Genocide and Resistance Center of Lithuania. See Anusauskas (1996: 40). Atamukas and Levin base their calculations on materials from the KGB archives.

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forced laborers. Many of them decided to stay after the war was over, fearful of what might happen to them if they returned to their countries. Thousands of Lithuanians, Latvians and Estonians left their homeland during the fourth wave, following the retreating German army. They ended up in Germany, the United States, Sweden, Canada, Australia, Great Britain and a number of South American states. The earliest deportations were carried out by the Soviet Union. Within one month of Soviet occupation (June–July 1940), about 20,000 people were deported to other parts of the Soviet Union. Among them were the members of the political elite, the military and their families. The official goal of Soviet deportations in Lithuania was to clean out all “alien elements” – members of non-Communist organizations, policemen, owners of plants, officers, government employees and the members of their families. In 1941, there were as many as fourteen categories according to which people from the Baltic states were deported. According to official documents, deportations in the Baltic states were not pursued according to ethnic criteria. The organ of the Soviet state responsible for carrying out the deportations was the NKVD. It was aided in its task by units of the Red Army. The other goal of planned resettlements was to speed up transition to collective farms. To illustrate, in a letter addressed to Zhdanov, the secretary of the Central Committee of the Soviet Communist Party, Botschkarev, a Soviet representative to Estonia, suggested that the “problem” of unequal distribution of land in Estonia and surrounding regions could be solved by resettling poor Russian villagers from the region of Petschory to the lands inhabited by Estonian farmers.5 A controversial, but under-researched aspect from that period is the NKVD’s ethnic politics in the Baltic states. It has been hypothesized that in 1940–1, the repressive institutions of the Soviet state in Lithuania tried to manipulate the ethnic tensions which emerged between Lithuanians and Jews at that time.6 It has been documented that some members of the Jewish population in the Baltic states initially showed support for the Soviet regime and were given some positions of power in the new state and even in the NKVD.7 It should be noted, however, that despite the initially positive attitude shown toward the Soviet regime by some Baltic Jews, they were not spared from the mass deportations of June 1941. Neither were other minorities living in the Baltic states (see Table 7.1). The June (1941) deportations were one of the most traumatic events in the Baltic states in this century. In Lithuania, the deportations coincided with the emergence of a resistance movement, the aim of which was to restore Lithuanian independence. As the Soviet army was retreating, a spontaneous uprising (also known as June uprising) started.8 June 1941 deportations also triggered armed anti-Soviet resistance in Latvia and Estonia. During Nazi rule, a new wave of deportations and exterminations started. This time, Jews, together with other “undesirable elements,” such as Gypsies, Communists and that part of the nonconformist Baltic intelligentsia which had survived the Soviet deportations, were dragged away to ghettos and concentration camps. 121

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The majority of the Baltic Jews were killed. This was done with help from the local population.9 However, the level of collaboration and especially the “spontaneity” of the killings of the local Jews remain a topic of intense scholarly and public debates in the Baltic states. According to historical studies written during the Soviet times, Baltic nationalists spontaneously murdered many Jews in revenge not only during German rule, but also prior to it (i.e. during 22–26 June 1941). Some of these sources are “Faktai Kaltina” [“The Facts Accuse”], printed until 1963, a book Documents Accuse (1970), “Jie gyvena tarp musu” [“They Live Among Us”] (1972), and “Isdavystes keliu” [“In the Way of Treason”], 1972. These publications, however, were released under the auspices of the KGB.10 In his extensive historical study, based on currently available documents (most of which were previously kept in “special” archives to which only a handful of people had access), Andrew Ezergailis argued that “an interregnum in Latvia, between when the German Army came in and the Einsatzgruppe arrived, did not exist, as the Soviets have claimed.”11 So far, no historical studies of a similar quality and depth dealing with the “interregnum” in Estonia and Lithuania have been produced.12 Therefore, it is fair to say that the complex web of relationships between the principals of the Holocaust – Germans, aided by Baltic nationals, and their victims, the Jews, the Communists and the Gypsies, remains to be untangled. After the end of the war resistance fighters (also known as “forest brothers”) and their families became the primary targets for deportation. The official goal of Soviet deportations during the period 1945–8 was to crush Baltic resistance fighters and their supporters. This time, deportations were carried out according to ten categories, which included German nationals, families who had arrived from Germany during the years of occupation, and “traitors” (almost anyone could classify as a traitor).13 Sometimes the repressive institutions of the state fabricated evidence about “guilt” by creating bogus “resistance” organizations and accusing people of taking part in them.14 In 1945, for the first time in the history of Soviet deportations in the Baltic states, nationality as a criterion for deportations was openly used in order to cleanse out Germans and everybody related to them. Residents of the Baltic states with German names found themselves being dragged out of their homes to be deported. The most massive deportations were carried out between 25–9 March 1949 in Latvia (more than 40,000) and Estonia (at least 20,000) and 22–7 May 1948 (41,000 people) in Lithuania.15 In 1948–9, about 200,000 people were deported from the Baltic states.16 The last deportation took place in 1953 in Lithuania, when families suspected of supporting the anti-Soviet resistance movement were deported. Tensions between those who collaborated with the ruling regime and those who opposed it, and the fear of deportations permeated the interaction among those who were not deported. Given the scope of forced population transfers followed by war and later by years of intense armed resistance, it is not surprising that they became a basis for a traumatic collective experience. The following sections examine its presence in the social and political life of the Baltic societies. 122

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Memory in the repressed societies During the first thaw after Stalin’s death, any “coming to terms with the past” regarding previous Stalinist crimes did not take place in the Baltic states, even though some deportees (approximately 30 percent) were rehabilitated. Homecoming from the places of deportation continued until 1961. Between 1954 and 1958, approximately 22,200 people (mostly ethnic Lithuanians) came back to Lithuania from the places of deportation. Approximately 71,522 survivors were allowed to settle in Lithuania.17 In the case of Latvia, approximately 8.5 percent (13,480) of all people deported in 1949 were allowed to return.18 Ani, the Minister of Social Order in Estonian SSR, reported that 2,280 people were rehabilitated in the postwar years. From 1940 to 1989, 42,420 Estonians were repatriated from the East.19 Details about the everyday life of the deportees – many of whom were deprived of their basic civil rights, including the right to return home – emerged in the Baltic Samizdat. In 1974 Lietuvos Baznycios Kronika (LBK) [Chronicle of the Lithuanian Church], telling the story of the deportation of Nijole Sadunaite, who was a Lithuanian resistance activist, asked: “Who will build even a symbolic monument to the victims of Stalinism? […] Lithuania’s past is absolutely ignored.”20 Kronika, produced in Chicago, often published the letters of deportees. For example, in 1975, Kestutis Jokubynas wrote: “[After deportation], I got a passport with a stamp which is used to mark the passports of prisoners jailed for the worst crimes. It meant numerous restrictions.”21 According to a 1994–5 survey of 600 deportation survivors who currently live in Latvia, their experiences of “homecoming” after 1953 (Stalin’s death) were similar to the ones described. Even their relatives and friends tried to distance themselves for fear of being associated with an “enemy of the regime.”22 The formerly deported remembered that they could not find a place to live, and had to compete with the “implanted” Russians for meager resources. Similarly, a survey of émigrés from the USSR conducted in Germany in the late seventies revealed that the influx of Russians to the Baltic states resulted in the perceptions that the “native power (i.e. the power of the local Latvians)” was decreasing. To cite a statement from the survey: “The power of Latvians decreases. Fewer are born here, more die, and if one Latvian gets into governing, there are two Russians [there] for him, [and] the Latvian has to dance as the Russians call the tune.”23 In the seventies, the Samizdat published the memoirs of the deportees, which served as an accusation of the system. Predictably, embitterment about ethnic restructuring and russification were often invoked by the Baltic dissident movements in the letters to international organizations. Yet prior to that, many displaced wrote about their experiences and put their writings into glass jars; then dug out a hole near their houses and buried the jars. This is how the chef d’oeuvre of the Lithuanian Tremtis [displacement] literature, Dalia Grinkeviciute’s memoirs, were preserved. She wrote them in 1949–50, when she illegally lived in her own house in Lithuania, having escaped from Siberia to bury her mother. Her memoirs were found only in 1991, after her death, in the garden next to the house.

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“We are the Lithuanian Gypsies, wrote Dalia, put into trains and driven somewhere. … Only when singing “Leiskit i Tevyne” [Let Us Go Back to Our Homeland], the unofficial anthem of Lithuanian deportees, did we feel closer to home.” During the mass deportation, Dalia was driven to Yakutiya. “We found ourselves in a big ice grave. We had to build our own houses. The men were driven away to catch fish; therefore, we women became the house builders.” When building this house in the land of ice, Dalia felt “an incredible moral satisfaction. I am building a house, my own house, in which I will be able to live by myself.”24 Dalia wrote that her yearning for a home, for a private space, was not well understood by the local Yakuts and Russians, thus making the displaced Lithuanian somewhat different from the others. The displaced could never forget their farmsteads in Lithuania. In her anthropological research of Latvian deportees, Vieda Skultans also observed a similar attachment of the displaced to their houses. She wrote that “exile and removal of large segments of the population from accustomed localities puts a special onus on memories of place. The farmstead comes to be seen as an embodiment of happiness and virtue, a pastoral metaphor for a good life.”25 The image of a wooden farmstead as embodiment of pain emerges from a rich body of the Lithuanian Tremtis poetry: Ateik, ateik kaip dumo kvapas Come, come as the smell of smoke Is atsimerkusios trobos, from a lively wooden farmstead, Kai siela – draugo neprikelus – When my soul – trying not to wake up my friend – Serksnu lauke apsinakvos. Will spend the night outside as an ice crystal.26 Such poems were written on pieces of sack material or on birch bark in the deportation camps and then tucked away. For each poem, if caught, the deportees would face five more years of deportation. The poems, however, were an invisible bridge to Lithuania. Many deportees, even those who had never written poetry before, wrote them. ‘We now have what is probably the richest poetry written by deportees and prisoners in Europe,’ argues Vytautas Kubilius, Lithuanian literary critic, “a poetry of contrast and pain.”27 Through symbolism and metaphors, the displaced poets also expressed their protest: Issiemes laikrodeli, I take out my little watch, Ziuriu ir stebiuos: Looking at it I wonder: Kaipgi jis dar issilaike How did it survive Sitokiuos laikuos? During such times?28 … and their determination to preserve the memory of the Tremtis: Rasiau anglim and berzo tosies, Ant maumedzio gelsvos skiedros,

I wrote with coal on the bark of birch trees, On yellow pieces of wood, 124

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Kada puga per kuna koses, When storm was entering my body, Kai tirpo veidas nuo kaitros. When my face was melting from heat.29 As punishment for writing this poem, Kazys Jakubenas was imprisoned for five more years. Having returned to Lithuania, he was mysteriously murdered in 1950, probably by the KGB. The idea of lost time is a recurring component of many poems and many narratives. Dalia Grinkeviciute wrote that her memories of June 14 (the day of mass deportations) were intertwined with the memory of a Chekist who read from a document that she would be deported to Siberia for the rest of her life and later took her watch. Her friend Zigmas Steponavicius also had to give his watch to a KGB agent, but in the hands of the Chekist the watch suddenly stopped … In Vieda Skultans’ words, losing their accustomed structures of time, they also literally lost their watches.30 The wealth of displacement poetry suggests that during the Soviet times memories about violent resettlements and resistance in the Baltic “mainlands” were mostly confined to the private sphere, personal archives and poetry. In the West, memories about 1940–1 and awareness of postwar events became a source of collective diasporic identity.31 Each year the Baltic American Freedom League and other émigré organizations organized demonstrations to commemorate Soviet deportations, which they called the “Baltic Holocaust.” Furthermore, the Baltic diaspora published numerous literary and historical works on the subject, among which was a list with 19,285 names compiled by Leonas Kerulis.32 Using the testimonies of the Lithuanian survivors from the Select Committee to Investigate the Incorporation of the Baltic states into the USSR in 1953, Joseph Pajaujis-Javis depicted the life of deportees in exile and the system of spying in the camps.33 Because of a lack of sources, however, the writers could only guess the numbers of those deported to Siberia.34 Poetry and prose written by the displaced in the deportation camps, coupled with the memories of the authors themselves became a part of the diaspora’s attempts to remind the United States and its allies about the “other” Europe. It also became the backbone of the diaspora’s political arguments for non-recognition of the Baltic states as a part of the Soviet Union. During the Soviet times, there was little contact between the Balts living in the “mainland” Lithuania, Latvia or Estonia, the deportation camps in Siberia, or in the West. The return of the diaspora from the East and the West did not start until 1988, otherwise known as the national revival period in the Baltic states.

Historical memory emerges The memories about displacement, buried in glass jars or tucked away in the cellars, did not become public until the break up of the Soviet Union. The retreat into privacy was over, and numerous attempts were made to reconnect private with public life through commemorations, the avalanche of published memoirs about displacement and trips to the places of deportation. 125

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The political thaw, which started in 1986, instantly awakened memories about the displacement. In 1986–8, numerous marches and public events commemorating deportations and past repressions were held in the Baltic states. Movements such as Helsinki ’86 pushed the Communist Party to reconsider the official interpretation of Baltic history.35 Those who went to the places of deportation, witnessed something gruesome. They could see the coffins lying around in the snow, scattered bones, smashed by bulldozers.36 In some places, like Tajikistan, very few traces of the displaced could be found. The living conditions were so bad that the deportees had no money for coffins, and their relatives were buried with a scarf laid on the face. The expedition that went to Tajikistan found nothing but a pile of bones in an area surrounded by a fence. The horrors experienced during the postwar years, which emerged from the memoirs of the deportees and the trips to the places of deportation, were difficult to account for as “an anomaly” of socialism or Communism. It required a reappraisal of the whole system. As Ricardas Kalytis wrote in his memoirs: [The tragedy] was brought not by fires, not by storm nor plague. It was brought by dark bearded men. They did not have to break in through windows. They were opening every door of our house like their own and were taking everything that they wanted. And you could not cry: ‘Police, police!’ This was your police, the truth of the state. They took out their papers, wanting to say that they are not the intruders; that ‘there is a decision’ to deport us to Siberia.37 A scene from a deportees’ meeting in 1989 illustrates the dilemma faced by the post-communist reformers, associated by some with these “dark bearded men.” In 1989, in a small town, during the meeting of the former deportees, an old woman stood up and began talking quietly to an older speaker who for a long time was trying to account for the postwar years in Lithuania. “But it is you who must be blamed for everything. You deported my sister! ” The speaker was at a loss for words. Finally he said, “but I did not want to … ” and left the meeting.38 During the late eighties, the memories about past injustices were recorded by historians. In November 1988, the Estonian historian Mart Laar published a series of articles entitled “The Time of Nightmares” [“Vremia Koshmarov”] about the fate of three villages in Estonia, the inhabitants of which perished during the summer of 1941. The articles, based on research conducted by the Estonian Heritage Society (established in December 1987 for the study of Estonian history), caused a sensation. In his articles, Mart Laar suggested that those responsible for carrying out repressions against Estonians should be prosecuted according to criminal law. Under enormous pressure from the Estonian people, the Supreme Council of the Estonian SSR passed a resolution condemning the repressions that were carried out by the Soviet regime during 1942–50. Similar resolutions were passed in 126

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Lithuania (on 21 October 1988) and in Latvia. The next year, the historian found himself in court: both Laar and the editors of the journal in which his articles appeared were accused of lacking evidence and of “a possible attempt to undermine the Soviet state.” Half a year later, the case was dropped because prosecutors were unable to show any “proof of misconduct.” Several years later, Laar became the Prime Minister of Estonia.39 Mart Laar’s transformation is an excellent example of the entanglement between history and politics during this period. At the same time, the Balts were reminded of another tragedy that took place in their territory – the Holocaust. During the revival, the Baltic Jewish communities renewed their activity. By then, out of a vibrant community of 200,000 Litvaks (Lithuanian Jews), only several thousand Jews were left in Lithuania, and they were contemplating moving to Israel. Many did so. Tortured by memories about the Catastrophe and the collaboration of Lithuanians, Latvians and, to a lesser degree, Estonians, the Baltic Jews confessed that living in the Soviet Baltic republics was not easy. Prompted by the activists of this tiny community of fewer than 4,000 members, Lithuania became the first post-Communist state (or, at that time, the first postCommunist entity) to adopt a law to ensure that the graves and cemeteries of Jews who were killed during the Nazi genocide would be taken care of. At the same time, the Jewish community lobbied other minority groups to support the adoption of a law on national minorities, which allocated some state support for a Jewish cultural association. The places of Jewish memory were honored: faceless boards counting the “Soviet citizens killed by fascists” were replaced by monuments with inscriptions in Lithuanian and Yiddish in which the nationality of the victims was identified. During the Soviet times, the cemeteries of the Jews in Vilnius were destroyed, and the monuments were used for construction. During the revival, the Lithuanians found out about the full scope of the tragedy of Lithuanian Jews: out of 200,000 Lithuanian Jews, only 10–12 percent survived the Holocaust. They also found out that a large number of their compatriots participated in the killings of the Lithuanian Jews. To discuss the painful events of 1940–1, the Lithuanian and Jewish historians gathered for the first ever historical dialog.40 Five years later, 23 September (the day the Vilnius ghetto was liquidated) became another day of sorrow and remembrance. Yet, as Antanas Gudelis observed, during the revival, the Lithuanians approached the tragedy of the Lithuanian Jews only through what they considered their own national memory about the Soviet deportations.41 The impressions of the Lithuanians who visited one of the first exhibitions (The Catastrophe, 19 June 1991) in the reopened Jewish museum in Vilnius illustrate this point: “Shaken by the tragedy experienced by the Jewish nation (the Lithuanian nation also experienced a similar genocide), leaving the museum, we hope that neither Lithuanians nor Jews nor any other nation will ever experience a genocide again and will live in peace.”42 Dealing with the memories about the Holocaust and especially the events of June 1941 has been probably the most difficult aspect of coming to terms with 127

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the past in Lithuania. Its Russian community is relatively small and passive. Consequently, memories about postwar years and Soviet occupation did not play a significant role in domestic Russian–Lithuanian relations.43 This was not the case in Latvia and Estonia. As the following section suggests, different interpretations of 1940 and the postwar years has remained a dividing line between the autochthonous communities of Latvians and Estonians and ethnic Russians.

Competing memories and attempts to restore justice after the recreation of the states In 1991, memories about the past left the streets and entered the debates on citizenship in Latvia and Estonia.44 At that time, the restored states were dealing with a difficult task – how to define the borders of their political community and how to decide who is one of “us.” The victims of Soviet repression often argued for restrictive citizenship laws. They noted that the Baltic states fall under provisions of the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949, which prohibits the deportation or transfer of members of an occupying power’s population into territory it occupies during war. Thus, they argued, Latvia and Estonia should be permitted to “decolonize” their territory.45 “Decolonization” implied that only those who lived in the territory of Latvia and Estonia prior to 1940 were entitled to automatic citizenship. Some even contemplated the resettlement of Russian speakers. The right to receive Latvian or Estonian citizenship was conceived of as a form of restitution, extended to those who suffered under the previous regime. More radical national political groups often attributed guilt to an entire ethnic group – sadly similarly to Soviet times, when guilt was attributed to the entire family of a resistance fighter or, in some cases, to an entire ethnic group. Citizenship became understood as a restitutive right reserved for the members of a national group, which had been endangered by Soviet population policies. Restitution, as well as “guilt,” was therefore understood in collective terms. In his recent interview with the Russian newspaper Izvestiya, Estonian president Lennart Meri admitted that when state creation was in its early stages, restitution was indeed perceived in collective terms: we were faced with a problem: how could the rights and interests of the citizens of prewar Estonia and their descendants, who had no say in becoming Soviet citizens, be maintained? … After independence was restored, we chose the option of the continuity of Estonian citizenship. There was no other way for us.46 Several years later, the state institutions grew stronger. At the same time, the governments initiated an intense search for those guilty of repressions. In 1994, the state prosecutor’s office in Estonia initiated three cases against those who were involved in repressions in Estonia during the period 1940–53. The next year, a special police unit began to investigate these cases. Two people who were under 128

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investigation have died of old age. In January 1999, an Estonian court convicted Johannes Klaassepp, a former Soviet security official who was involved in the deportations that occurred in 1949. Klaassepp was found guilty of ordering the deportation of more than twenty people. A local court handed down an eight-year suspended sentence to the 77-year-old, who had pleaded innocent. Klaassepp is the first person to be convicted in Estonia for involvement in the deportations that occurred under Stalin.47 Events took a similar turn in Latvia as well. In 1993, the Latvian parliament created the Department for the Investigation of Totalitarian Crimes, appointing Uldis Strelis, a former deportee who returned to Latvia from Siberia in 1954, as its head. The first case was initiated in 1995 against Alfons Noviks, a former KGB General. He was sentenced to life in prison.48 In 1998, a case was initiated against Vasily Kononov, who, together with eighteen other pro-Soviet partisans, dressed up in German uniforms and committed atrocities in a Latgalian village in 1944. The fate of another Russian, Mashonkin, also became a source of tension between Latvia and Russia. Mashonkin, however, holds Russian citizenship and therefore is not subject to Latvian laws.49 One positive aspect of these trials has been that guilt, as well as retribution, has begun to be analyzed not on the collective, but on the individual level. Recently, in trials against those accused of conducting deportations and mass murder, the Baltic states followed the Resolution of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe “On measures to dismantle the heritage of former communist totalitarian systems,” adopted in Strasbourg on 27 June 1996. The European Council recommended that “criminal acts committed by individuals during the communist totalitarian regime be prosecuted and punished under the regular criminal code,” which implies that for each crime, even if committed a long time ago, the same procedures laid out by the criminal code, had to be applied. This means fewer trials, since it is very difficult to gather evidence for crimes that were committed a long time ago. In Lithuania, which is the most ethnically homogenous of the three, restoration of justice did not turn out to be any easier than in the other two states. Tension began as early as May 1990, when Lithuania adopted a law on the rehabilitation of people who had been victims of repression under the Soviet regime. Article 2 of this law indicated that those who participated in genocide could not be rehabilitated. At that time, however, there was no mechanism in place to determine who was guilty and who was not: the archives were a mess, and the state institutions were very weak. The international community immediately voiced a concern about the rehabilitation of Nazi collaborators. Reacting to these concerns, the Lithuanian state refused to fulfill approximately seven hundred applications for rehabilitation. To increase transparency, Vytautas Landsbergis, the leader of the Conservative Party, suggested the creation of a joint Lithuanian–Israeli Commission for Rehabilitation. The then President Algirdas Brazauskas invited an Israeli delegation to visit Lithuania. The prosecutor’s office established links with the Jewish community in Lithuania and with international Jewish organizations 129

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researching genocide. The staff of this office even helped these organizations to gain access to certain archival materials. The rehabilitation process for former deportees and political prisoners was, to some extent, slowed down by these actions. When international organizations began gathering information about Lithuanians who were thought to have participated in the killing of Jews, a public debate started; “Those who wanted revenge came to Lithuania, dug into the archives, even examining the records of those who had returned from Siberia.”50 During the debate, the events of 1940–1 were revisited. The theory of a “double genocide” appeared in the Lithuanian press.51 This “theory” hypothesized that Lithuanian Jews had actively participated in the deportations of Lithuanians in 1940–1 (i.e. “the Soviet genocide”), and that Lithuanians merely took out revenge on the Jews by collaborating with the Germans. (This “theory” overlooks a very important fact, however. As can be seen from Table 7.1, Lithuanian Jews were not spared from the Soviet deportations in 1940–1. Also, the deportations were organized by the repressive institutions of the Soviet state, not by Lithuanian Jews.) The debate became especially bitter after the United States deported Aleksandras Lileikis, the former chief of the Lithuanian police, to be tried in Lithuania. “Why is it that only the participants in the Nazi genocide are being tried, and not the participants in the ‘Soviet genocide’?” angry voices were asking. The Lithuanian Jewish community was strongly opposed to the concept of collective guilt. After a speech delivered to the Israeli Knesset by the President of Lithuania in March 1995 (in which he apologized for those Lithuanians who had participated in the killing of the Jews), the Lithuanian Jewish community revealed that, in 1940–1, approximately 7 percent of the staff of the NKVD in Lithuania had, in fact, been made up of Jews.52 In March 1999 it voiced its approval for the decision of the Lithuanian Prosecutor’s Office to bring charges against Petras Raslanas, a Lithuanian and former NKVD operative (now hiding in Russia), who is accused of participating in the mass murder of Lithuanians in the town of Rainiai. “Thus [by identifying the guilty and bringing them to justice] the myth about Jews killing Lithuanians will disappear,” argued Simonas Alperavicius, the leader of the Lithuanian Jewish community.53 The painful process of coming to terms with a multi-layered past continues. The Jewish–Lithuanian relations and the events of June 1941 were revisited by another international conference: Atminties dienos: The Days of Memory in 11–16 October 1993, during which an open dialog between the Lithuanian and Jewish communities was established. To make the articulation and discovery of historical truth easier, the Lithuanian parliament adopted a resolution in 1997 encouraging international cooperation in researching crimes against humanity and war crimes that were carried out in the territory of Lithuania. An international commission to research these crimes was created. A part of the public remains, however, susceptible to the “theories” about a “double genocide.” Markas Zingeris, a writer and a playwright, captured the essence of the problem in his article “Praeitis slegia ne mus vienus. Bet mus–labiau” [“We are not the only ones who feel the burden of the past. But our burden is heavier”] “In the public 130

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debates … the problem was often portrayed as if it were a collision between two ethnic groups – the Jews against the Lithuanians, not as an investigation of people suspected of crimes against humanity. Thinking in terms of universal human values remains lacking in such exchanges.”54 Rasa Rastauskiene, a former deportee and member of Parliament, argued that Lithuanians should learn to separate the nationality of those who committed deportations and killings from the individuals responsible: “[some] individuals in Lithuania [still] confuse communist crimes with the Jewish or Russian nation.”55 The victims of those crimes felt that the restored Lithuanian state has not been doing enough to address the legacy of Communism. Therefore, since the end of the Cold War, one of the major goals of the former victims of Soviet crimes (i.e. former deportees and political prisoners) has been to publicly condemn communism and prove that “communism, like Nazism is pure evil.” In June 2000, the survivors of Igarka and Vorkuta gathered in Vilnius for what they called “Nuremberg-2” to tell their stories publicly and to “call on the governments of the world to establish a court to judge International Communism and communist criminals.”56 “Nuremberg-2,” even though viewed by many younger members of society as an unnecessary public exhibition of the wounds of the past,57 serves a function similar to the international commissions researching the crimes against humanity, or public debates. That function is constant public revisiting of the past, which eventually helps to achieve reconciliation between those who are associated with the “guilty” party and those who are associated or identify themselves as victims. According to the head of the international commission researching the crimes against humanity committed during the two occupations, their goal is not to prosecute the guilty. The goal of the commission is to attempt to restore historical truth and to evaluate the events, which took place during the last fifty years in Lithuania.58 Lennart Meri, the President of Estonia, created a similar commission – the Commission to Investigate Crimes Against Humanity Perpetrated in Estonia – in 1998. Latvia established a national commission of historians in November 1998. That same year, the presidents of the three Baltic states agreed to establish a collective commission to deal with crimes against humanity, hoping that internationalization will make the process of facing the past and creating civil societies easier. Hopefully, readiness to confront the past and a willingness to view guilt in individual, and not collective, terms, will become an important part of such projects.

Conclusion Fifty years after the war and displacements, the Baltic states and societies have created the public means of transmission – commemoration practices, special days, historiography, monuments, museums and archives – to keep the memory about the experiences of the postwar years alive. In the three states, these experiences are the focus of today’s commemorative practices and shape social memory 131

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through reenactment. The dominant narrative has focused on the Soviet deportations, and it has played a central role in defining national identity. The losses of people incurred during this period have been carefully documented by historians, and most stories of the formerly displaced, currently residing in Lithuania, are being recorded. Interpersonal means of transmission – personal archives, photographs, personal narratives, visits – have coexisted and intertwined with the dominant narrative. What has been excluded from this dominant narrative? The story about the plight of the Wolfskinder, the Germans from Kaliningrad (formerly Königsberg) residing in Lithuania only recently has been revealed to the public. After the war was over, thousands of refugees from East Prussia, mostly orphan German children, flooded Lithuania and Latvia to get food and shelter. Since these children were hungry and orphaned, they were called “the children of wolves,” or Wolfskinder. Today some still have double names: one German, another Lithuanian (or Latvian). For fifty years, these people had to conceal their identity and adopt foreign names; otherwise they or the families who adopted them could have been deported. For half a century, this group, deprived of its identity and language, was virtually invisible and silent. Their life stories were recorded and made public by Ruth Kibelka and a popular TV show.59 However, the life stories and the Holocaust experiences of the Baltic Gypsies, an ethnic group without a homeland, remain, by and large, unknown. In addition to trying to create a shared sense of authentic history, the Baltic states attempted to restore justice. To many, the concept of collective guilt turned out to be especially attractive in the beginning stages of state building. The Baltic experience suggests that in democratizing multi-ethnic states (which also aspire to become nation states), the restoration of justice, especially if understood in collective terms, may become a point of inter-ethnic tension. Thus, one lesson is: multi-ethnic societies should try to learn to deal with the past without invoking collective guilt. Guilt, as well as responsibility for even the most horrendous crimes must be individual; otherwise, it can negatively affect inter-ethnic relations. Conducting trials of the individuals guilty of the crimes against humanity and creating international commissions helps the democratizing societies to begin to analyze guilt, as well as retribution, not on the collective, but on the individual level. It is naive to think, however, that there will be no public or international resistance to such trials or international commissions. In Lithuania, for example, the Commission is criticized by the formerly repressed that it is supposedly going to focus more on the Nazi crimes. It is also criticized by Israeli politicians for researching the events of the Nazi and the Soviet eras together. Nevertheless, the internationalization of “coming to terms with the past” and trials will help to initiate the public reckoning on how traumatic events could have happened. During transition, such reckoning is more important to democratization than criminal law’s more traditional objective – punishment of crime. Public discussions are stimulated, and eventually toleration and civil respect are fostered, thus hopefully overcoming ethnic divides. 132

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Acknowledgments For useful comments on the earlier drafts of this chapter, I thank Ulf Hedetoft, Karl Schloegel, Viorel Achim, David Mendeloff and Anna Minna Pavulans. I also thank the Open Society Archives (Central European University, Budapest), Aalborg University, European University in Viadrina and the Carnegie Council on Ethics and International Affairs for generous financial support.

Notes 1 Skultans (1998: 25). 2 This point about the societies which have experienced massive dislocations was made by Stephan Feuchtwang in his paper “Reinscriptions: The Transmission of Histories of Human Catastrophe in Different Registers” (Feuchtwang 1999: 16). 3 This term was used by Claudia Koonz in “Between Memory and Oblivion: Concentration Camps in German Memory” (Koonz 1994: 258). 4 These figures are from Schechtman (1971). 5 A letter dated 21 October 1940, in Sabbo (1996: 688–9). 6 Senn (1997: 354). 7 Levin (1995: 36–7) about the Jewish–Lithuanian relations. Maslauskiene’s article “Lietuvos komunistu sudetis 1940 m. spalio-1941 m. birzelio men.” (Maslauskiene 1999: 20–46) includes a detailed description of the ethnic makeup of the Lithuanian Communist Party and other institutions of power prior to the Second World War. 8 For a good collection of documents on the June uprising, see Brandisauskas (1998). 9 Yet there were also many who risked their lives to save them. For example, in Latvia, Janis Lipke saved forty-two Jews from the Jewish ghetto. See Segal (1990: 229). The Lithuanian “Schindler” was J. Rutkauskas, who saved more than 150 Jews. The Holocaust Museum in Washington has a list of 200 names of Lithuanians who saved the Jews. The Archive of the Gaon Jewish Museum in Vilnius has a list of 2,300 names of Jewish rescuers. See Sakaite (1998: 81–103). 10 The Lithuanian Special Archive [Lietuvos Specialusis Archyvas], Aprasas 1 [The first description], collection K-1, file 1. 11 Ezergailis (1996: xvii). “When Wehrmacht entered Riga on 1 July 1941, at 1 p.m., and Brigadenführer Stahlecker, the Commissar of Einsatzgruppe A, was talking to Arajs only a few hours later.” 12 The end of June 1941 (when the Soviet army retreated and the German army entered) remains one of the most contested and most politically charged topics in Baltic history. Answering the question about the role of the Lithuanians during that period, Saulius Suziedelis, an American Lithuanian historian argued that “the role of the Lithuanians was probably greater than many of the emigre historians are ready to admit; yet the local residents did not have a final say in this tragedy.” Interview with Suziedelis (1992). Situation in Estonia was different from the one in Latvia and Lithuania. The German army stopped in the middle of Estonia, and of the 5,000 Estonian Jews, most escaped to Russia. About 1,000 remained and perished. Taagepera (1993: 70). 13 Directive No. 0165 “registration of the anti-Soviet and Contra-revolutionary elements,” written by J. Bartasiunas and A. Guzevicius, the directors of NKVD and NKGB in Lithuania, citation in Grunskis (1996: 59). 14 For example, during the process of rehabilitation of some victims in 1952, the NKVD admitted that such organizations were created. The Lithuanian Special Archive, Foundation K-1, collection 2, file 3. 15 The Lithuanian Genocide Museum (1998). 16 Zvidrins (1994: 366).

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17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24

25 26 27 28 29 30 31

32 33 34 35

36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44

Lietuviai pasaulyje (1998: 13). Sabbo (1996: 1087). Sabbo (1996: 1076). Also see Viikberg (1994: 54–64). Lietuvos Baznycios Kronika 1975, no. 18, p. 131. Lietuvos Baznycios Kronika 1975, no. 19, pp. 184–7. Vidnere and Nucho (2000: 13). National Council for Soviet and European Research (1979). Dalia’s memoirs were first published by the Russian dissidents in 1979. In Lithuania, it first appeared in a collection edited by Aldona Zemaityte (Zemaityte 1989: 20–45) and later as a separate book Lietuviai prie Laptevu juros [Lithuanians at the Laptev Sea] (Vilnius: Lietuviu Rasytoju Sajunga, 1997). Skultans (1998: 31). Benediktas Budrys, who spent 25 years in camps, “Be teviskes” [Without a Homeland], a poem from Tremties Archyvas: Tremtinio Lietuva (1990: 58). Vytautas Kubilius, in Tremties Archyvas (1990: 5–7). Kazys Jakubenas, “Laikrodelis” [Watch], in Tremties Archyvas (1990: 260). Vytautas Cinauskas, “Lietuviski zodziai” [The Lithuanian Words], in Tremties Archyvas (1990: 93). Vieda Skultans wrote about a similar experience of the Latvian soldiers who heard after capitulation: Atdavai chasy. As well as losing accustomed structures of time, they also literally lost their watches. Skultans (1998: 32). According to Egidijus Aleksandravicius, a Lithuanian historian, the main difference between “coming to terms with the past” in the East (mainland Lithuania) and the West was that in the West the displaced could publicly address their pain, analyze it in serious publications, while in the East the Soviet Lithuanian intellectuals could do it only in secret. Praeitis, istorija ir istorikai [The Past, History, and Historians] (Vilnius: Vaga, 2000), p. 86. Kerulis (1981). Other works include Pelekis (1949) and Oras (1948). Pajaujis-Javis (1980). For example, In the diaspora sources, the total number of deported from Lithuania ranged from 270,000 to 600,000. According to the estimations of the Lithuanian Genocide and Resistance Research Center (LGGRTC), this number is closer to 132,000. I discuss these developments in more detail in my essay ‘Embitterments and Today’s Politics: Ethnic Restructuring and its Aftermath in the Baltic States,’ in Rainer Muenz et al., eds, Diasporas and Ethnic Migrants in 20th Century Europe (Newbury Park, UK: Frank Cass Publishers, 2001). For further description, see Tarasonis, Bajoriunas and Gediminskas (1992). Kalytis (1990: 6). Mecys Laurinkus, quoted in Lietuvos gyventoju genocidas (1992: vii). Kamenik (1998). Eidintas (1990: 3). Lietuvos Aidas, 1 December 1990. The Jewish Museum (1994: 144). Virginijus Savukynas suggests that there are almost no negative stereotypes of ethnic Russians in Lithuanian mass media. See Savukynas (1998: 57). Pre-1998 citizenship laws in Latvia granted citizenship to all those who were Latvian citizens on 17 June 1940, and to their descendants, as well as to orphans and foreignborn children of Latvian parents. The law’s provisions applied to roughly 200,000 non-ethnic Latvians who were citizens before the Second World War. Under the 1994 Citizenship law, those who would never be eligible for naturalization included persons who had posed a threat to Latvian security, those who had worked for the Soviet Secret Service or were KGB informants, and persons who (after 4 May 1990) had promoted fascist or communist ideologies. Pre-1998 citizenship laws in Estonia provided that

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45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59

only those who were citizens before 1940 and their direct descendants would be automatically granted citizenship; others had to go through naturalization. In 1998, Estonia and Latvia adopted the amendments to their citizenship laws that grant virtually automatic citizenship to stateless children. Human Rights and Democratization in Estonia, prepared by the staff of the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe. Washington DC, 1993, p. 6. “Not the Right of the Strong but the Right of the Equal,” the files of Izvestiya (Izvestiya: 1999). Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty Newsline, 25 January 1999. The Baltic Times (1998: 8). Presentation by Uldis Strelis in an International Conference “Investigation of Problems and Crimes Against Humanity and War Crimes,” Vilnius, 5 November 1998. Volertas (1998: 5). For a review of Lithuanian press, see Bluvstein (1997: 52–61). This statement was made by Simonas Alperavicius, see Lietuvos Aidas, 4 March 1995, p. 4. Lietuvos Aidas, 23 March 1999, p. 2. Lietuvos Rytas, 11 February 1999, online version www.lrytas.lt. Jerusalem of Lithuania, October 1998 to January 1999, p. 4. Tarptautinis kongresas (2000). Vygandas Vareikis, “Sis tas apie lemti” [Some Thoughts on Fate], Siaures Atenai, 29 July 2000, p. 2. An interview with Emanuelis Zingeris in Lietuvos Aidas, 17 March 1999, p. 5. Kibelka (1995).

References Aleksandravicius, Egidijus, Praeitis, Istorija ir istorikai [The Past, History, and Historians] (Vilnius: Vaga, 2000). Anusauskas, Arvydas, Lietuviu Tautos Sovietinis Naikinimas 1940–1958 metais [The Destruction of the Lithuanian Nation in 1940–1958] (Vilnius: Mintis, 1996). Atamukas, Saliamonas, Zydai Lietuvoje, XIV–XXa [Jews in Lithuania, 14th–20th century] (Lituanus: Vilnius, 1990). Bluvstein, Juri, Na puti k dialogu [On the Way to Dialogue] (Vilnius: Litovskij Jerusalim, 1997). Brandisauskas, Valentinas, comp., 1941 m. birzelio sukilimas: dokumentu rinkinys [1941 June Uprising: A Collection of Documents] (Vilnius: LGGRTC, 2000). Bremmer, Ian and Ray Taras, eds, New States, New Politics: Building the Post-Soviet Nations (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997). Butkus, Alvydas, Latviai [The Latvians], Aesti, Kaunas, 1995. Damusis, Adolfas, Lithuania Against Soviet and Nazi Aggression (Chicago: The American Foundation for Lithuanian Research, 1998). Eidintas, Alfonsas, “Pirmasis zydu-lietuviu istoriku dialogas” [“The First Jewish– Lithuanian Historian Dialogue”], Lietuvos Rytas, 12 December 1990, p. 3. Ezergailis, Andrew, The Holocaust in Latvia, 1941–1944: The Missing Center, Riga, The Historical Institute of Latvia, Riga, and the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington DC, Riga, 1996, p. xvii. Feuchtwang, Stephen, “Reinscriptions: The Transmission of Histories of Human Catastrophe in Different Registers,” presented at the conference “Remembering and

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Forgetting: The Political and Social Aftermath of Intense Conflict in Eastern Asia and Northern Europe,” Lund, 15–17 April 1999. Gillis, J. R., ed., Commemorations: The Politics of National Identity (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994). Grinkeviciute, Dalia, Lietuviai prie Laptevu juros [Lithuanians at the Laptev Sea] (Vilnius: Lietuvos Rasytoju sajunga, 1997). Grunskis, Eugenijus, Lietuvos Gyventoju Tremimai 1940–1941, 1945–1953 metais [The Deportation of the Lithuanian population in 1940–1941, 1945–1953] (Vilnius: Lietuvos Istorijos Institutas, 1996). Human Rights and Democratization in Estonia, prepared by the staff of the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe. Washington DC, 1993. Izvestiya, 2 April 1999 (www.president.ee). Jerusalem of Lithuania, October 1998 to January 1999. Kalytis, Ricardas. Musu-ne dainu metas [Our Time, not the Time of Songs] (Vilnius: Vaga, 1990). Kamenik, Toivo. “The Estonian Practice Investigating Crimes Against Humanity and War Crimes,” presented at the conference “Investigation of the Problems of Crimes Against Humanity and War Crimes,” 5 November 1998, Vilnius, Lithuania. Kerulis, Leonas, A Register of Deported Lithuanians: Stalin’s Policy of Terror, 1940–41 (Chicago: Lithuanian World Archives, 1981). Kerulis, Leonas, cited in Anusauskas, Arvydas, Lietuviu Tautos Sovietinis Naikinimas 1940–1958 metais [The Destruction of the Lithuanian Nation in 1940–1958] (Vilnius: Mintis, 1996), p. 12. Kibelka, Ruth, Deutsch Geboren-Litauisch Adoptiert: Wolfskinder in Litauen [Born German, Adopted by Lithuanians: Wolfskinder in Lithuania] (Lampertheim: Litauisches Kulturinstitut, 1995). Kivimaa, E. “Kollektivisatsiya v Pribaltike,” Kommunist Estonii, 4 (1989), 60. Koonz, Claudia, “Between Memory and Oblivion: Concentration Camps in German Memory,” in John R. Gillis, ed., Commemorations: The Politics of National Identity (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994). LBK, Lietuvos Baznycios Kronika, 1975. Levin, Dov, The Lesser of Two Evils: Eastern European Jewry Under the Soviet Rule, 1939–1941 (Jerusalem: The Jewish Publication Society, 1995). LGGRTC, Lietuvos gyventoju genocido ir rezistencijos tyrimo centras, Lithuanian Genocide and Resistance Research Center. Lietuviai pasaulyje [Lithuanians in the World] (Vilnius: Rosma, 1998). Lietuvos Aidas. December 1990; March 1995, March 1999. Lietuvos gyventoju genocidas [The Lithuanian Genocide], Volume 1, 1939–41. Vilnius: Filosofijos, Sociologijos ir teises institutas, Represiju Lietuvoje Tyrimo Centras, 1992. Lietuvos Rytas. February 1999. Lithuanian Genocide Museum, exhibition, November 1998. Lithuanian Special Archive [Lietuvos Specialusis Archyvas], Aprasas 1 [The first description], collection K-1, file 1. Loeber, Andre D., V. Stanley Vardys and Laurence P. A. Kitching, eds, Regional Identity Under Soviet Rule (Hacketstown, NJ: Institute for the Study of Law, Politics, and Society of Socialist States, 1990). Maslauskiene, Nijole, “Lietuvos komunistu sudetis 1940 m. spalio–1941 m. birzelio men.” [The (Social) Makeup of the Lithuanian Communists, October 1940–June 1941], Genocidas ir Rezistencija, 2(6) (1999), 20–46.

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Memento, organization for illegally repressed people in Estonia. It has compiled 40,455 cards of deportees. See Political Arrests in Estonia, compiled by Leo Oispuu, vol. 1, Tallinn, Estonian Repressed Persons Records Bureau, 1996, p. A2. Muenz, Rainer, Rainer Ohliger and William Safran, eds, Diasporas and Ethnic Migrants in 20th Century Europe (Newbury Park, UK: Frank Cass Publishers, 2001). National Council for Soviet and European Research. Executive Summary of a Research Project on Soviet Ethnic Relations (1979). The study is currently kept in the Open Society Archives, Budapest, collection 300, file 80/1/547. NKVD: declassified data of the repressive Soviet police (also known as KGB), compiled in Lietuviai pasaulyje [Lithuanians in the World] (Vilnius: Rosma, 1998). Oras, Ants, The Baltic Eclipse (London: Victor Gollanz, 1948). Pajaujis-Javis, Soviet Genocide in Lithuania (New York: Manyland Books, 1980). Pelekis, Kazimieras, Genocide: Lithuania’s Threefold Tragedy (Germany: Venta, 1949). Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty Newsline, 25 January 1999. Riekstins, Janis, “Chyornaya Instruktsiya,” Soversenno otkrovenno, 3 (1990), 4. Sabbo, Hilda, comp, Voimatu Vaikida [It is Impossible to Be Silent] (Tallinn: Uhiselu, 1996). Sakaite, Viktorija, “Zydu gelbejimas” [Rescuing the Jews] (Genocidas ir rezistencija), 2(4) (1998), 81–103. Salo, Vello, Population losses in estonia, June 1940–August 1941, vol. 1 (Scarborough, Ontario: Maarjamaa, 1989). Savukynas, Virginijus, “Kaip mes galvojame apie kitus” [What Do We Think about the Others], Kulturos Barai, 7 (1998), 54–9. Schechtman, Joseph, European Population Transfers 1939–45 (NewYork: Russell and Russell, 1971) (originally published in 1946). Segal, Zvi, “Jewish Minorities in the Baltic Republics in the Postwar Years,” in Andre D. Loeber, V. Stanley Vardys and Laurence P. A. Kitching, eds, Regional Identity Under Soviet Rule (Hacketstown, NJ: Institute for the Study of Law, Politics, and Society of Socialist States, 1990). Senn, Alfred E, “Lithuania: Rights and Responsibilities of Independence,” in Ian Bremmer and Ray Taras, eds, New States, Old Politics: Building the Post-Soviet Nations (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997). Skultans, Vieda, The Testimony of Lives: Narrative and Memory in post-Soviet Latvia (London and New York: Routledge, 1998). Strelis, Uldis, Presentation at the conference “Investigation of Problems and Crimes Against Humanity and War Crimes,” Vilnius, 5 November 1998. Suziedelis, Saulius, An interview with Saulius Suziedelis. Akiraciai, 1992, No. 1. Taagepera, Rein, Estonia: Return to Independence. (Boulder, Colorado: Westview, 1993). Tarasonis, Vytautas, Antanas Bajoriunas and Donatas Gediminskas, Lietuvos Tremtiniai Tadzikijoje (Vilnius: Lietuvos Auto, 1992). Tarptautinis kongresas, ‘Komunizmo nusikaltimu ivertinimas.’ Rezoliucija [International Congress to Evaluate the Crimes of Communism. Resolution], Tremtinys, June 22, 2000, p. 1. The Baltic Times, 16–22 July 1998, p. 8. The Jewish Museum (Vilnius: Lietuvos Valstybinis zydu muziejus, 1994). Tremties Archyvas: Tremtinio Lietuva [The Displacement Archive] (Vilnius: Vaga, 1990). Vareikis, Vygandas, “Sis tas apie lemti” [Some Thoughts on Fate], Siaures Atenai, July 29, 2000, p. 2.

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Vidnere, Mara and Aina O. Nucho, Latvian Survivors of Deportations (Riga: RaKa, 2000). Viikberg, Juri, “Estonians in Russia; Russians in Estonia. Some Comparisons,” in Oral Memories and National Identity (Tallinn: Keele ja Kirjanduse Instituuut, 1994). Volertas, Vytautas, ‘Tiesos Sakymas ne visada lengvas’ [Telling the Truth is Not Always Easy], Dienovidis, 18–24 December 1998, p. 5. Zemaityte, Aldona, ed., Amzino isalo zemeje [In the Land of Eternal Winter] (Vilnius: Vyturys, 1989). Zvidrins, Peteris, “Changes of Ethnic Composition in the Baltic States,” Nationalities Papers, 22(2) (1994), 365–77.

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8 TRANSMITTED EXPERIENCE Individual testimonies and collective memories of the Nanjing Atrocity Daqing Yang

In the autumn of 1955, Simone de Beauvoir undertook a six-week tour of the People’s Republic of China (PRC). During her brief stopover in the city of Nanjing, she had the following encounter: As we are drinking tea on a lawn a delegation of Japanese comes round a bend in the path. They all have mustaches, horn-rimmed glasses, wear snappy Western business suits, and each carries a leather briefcase. I think of the sack of Nanking and wonder whether the Chinese, before their Japanese guests, must not have much the same feelings Europeans had when the first German tourists began to reappear after the war. De Beauvoir then asked Madame Cheng, her Chinese travel companion who was a novelist of her age. “We must learn to forget,” Madame Cheng replied with a quick faint smile, “a smile,” noted de Beauvoir, “which shows that she has not forgotten.”1 This brief episode raises several interesting questions about remembering and forgetting traumatic events. Although we know how de Beauvoir learned and thought about the Nanjing Atrocity – she referred to books by Edgar Snow and other wartime publications – we know far less about how the Chinese woman remembered that event and why she wanted to forget it. We can only speculate on what those Japanese visitors might have thought about the atrocities committed by Japanese troops in Nanjing nearly twenty years earlier. These questions in turn bring us to the issue of collective memory – how groups and societies remember (and forget) about past events. Again, there is no easy answer to the question of how collective memories are constructed. In his pioneering work, The Collective Memory, Maurice Halbwachs has reminded us that “[while] the collective memory endures and draws strength from its base in a coherent body of people, it is individuals as group members who remember.”2 But is collective memory simply an amalgamation of individual memories? Or, if not 139

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all group members have experienced a particular event, can it be said that those individuals with direct experience carry a greater weight in the collective memory? And do individuals involved in a major trauma always remember differently depending on their status as survivors, perpetrators or bystanders? Even if we may never know for sure what each individual remembers, focusing on testimonies by those individuals with direct experience has some merit. Above all, experience is considered “real”. After all, the event known as the Nanjing Atrocity was first “experienced” by tens of thousands of Chinese, Japanese as well as a much smaller number of Westerners in the Nanjing area in the winter of 1937–8. One can be an eyewitness to an event, but ultimately that is an observation. (Some of these “experiences” can only be observed but not “experienced”, as in the case of many that died in the atrocity.) Experience thus acquires the appeal as incontestable evidence, since “what could be truer, after all, than a subject’s own account of what he or she has lived through?”3 In the meantime, experience is ultimately individual, as no two individuals can experience the same event in completely identical ways; experience is also internal, so it can only be known to others by transmission. However, as individuals retell their experiences to any audience, whether it is within families or larger communities – neighborhood, city, nation – experience is no longer simultaneous but reconstructed. In short, it is through transmitted experience that individual memory enters the realm of collective memory. Transmission of the experience in the so-called Nanjing Atrocity has taken many forms in postwar China and Japan. By situating individual testimonies in the political and social aftermath of the Second World War, and by examining the transmission of experience over time as well as over space, this paper sheds light on the differences and similarities between how Japan and China have constructed collective memories of that intense conflict, as well as the important linkages between these two nations. In the meantime, this study also seeks to address the ongoing discussion on the relationship between individual testimonies and collective memories.

China: fractured memories In fact, individual testimonies of the Nanjing Atrocity became available in China and in the English-speaking world even during the war, as Western missionaries as well as a few Chinese who managed to leave the city a few months later published accounts of their experiences.4 However, not until after the Japanese surrender in 1945 did most Chinese survivors and eyewitnesses have their first opportunities to recount their experiences to the public. When the Nationalist Government returned to Nanjing in 1945, it set out to collect evidence of the Japanese atrocities in the occupied areas in preparation for the war crimes trials. In December of that year, Chiang Kai-shek made a personal plea to the residents of Nanjing to provide testimonies of atrocities committed by the Japanese and the puppet regimes. A government committee was set up to 140

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investigate the Nanjing Massacre, but it soon found out that this was no easy task. In early July 1946, the Chief Prosecutor in Nanjing admitted various obstacles in the investigation: occasionally entire families had been eliminated, others had fled and not returned. Some citizens were unwilling to come forward because the government procedure of evidence gathering was too complicated. Still others were too ashamed to report the incidents.5 In November, when the committee concluded its investigation, it again reported that: As eight years have passed, many victims have died or their families moved away so that nobody can report on their behalf. Because of the lapse of time, others no longer want to revisit their old wounds. This is especially true with women of reputable families who had been raped.6 Other survivors were reluctant, as the report noted, either because they did not know the particulars of perpetrators or the enemy units, or because they thought providing such testimonies would help little their current economic hardship. These difficulties notwithstanding, the Committee was able to compile an impressive body of testimonies, in addition to collecting various written documentation, such as wartime publications and unpublished burial records by Chinese charity organizations (see Table 8.1).7 This seems to confirm the perceived difficulties. Cases of rape, reported by relatives, neighbors or the victims themselves, were surprisingly few, This inevitably made the overall case tilt toward massacres and other types of murders. Nevertheless, the testimonies of witnesses played a significant role in the trials in Nanjing and Tokyo. For instance, several Chinese Table 8.1 Statistics of enemy crimes in the Nanjing Massacre (5 October 1946) File no.

Type of crime

Number of cases

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14

Killed by gun shot Killed by bayonet Slaughtered en masse Taken away as coolies Burnt to death Beaten to death Killed after torture Killed after rape Killed in explosion Rape Tortured en masse Drowned Other Unclassified

1,159 667 331 285 136 69 33 20 19 16 14 11 6 34

53 32 32 40 1 5 1 3

5 5 5

2 1 1 2 1

2 1 1

Total

2,784

155

20

Source: Qin-Hua Rijun Nanjing datusha dang’an, p. 542.

141

Persons to receive relief

Person who can testify

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witnesses, together with a few Americans who had been in Nanjing at the time, took the witness stand in Tokyo against the defendant General Matsui Iwane. Wu Changde, a former policeman in Nanjing, was reportedly the only survivor of a massacre of two thousand people. Another Chinese by the name of Lu Su testified that he had witnessed an even greater massacre of 57,400 unarmed Chinese by the Yangtze River. Both their testimonies were incorporated into the final verdict of the Tokyo Trial. The war crimes trial in Nanjing against Lieutenant General Tani Hisao, Commander of the 6th Division, also called upon many Chinese survivors to bear witness.8 If verdicts of war crimes trials can be considered building blocks of collective memory of the Nanjing Atrocity in China (and to some extent in Japan and in the West), individual testimonies indeed had been given a prominent place. Before we turn to the collective memory of the Nanjing Atrocity in the PRC, it is important to keep in mind that the war against Japan was by no means the only traumatic event in its recent history: the Chinese people underwent the long and often brutal civil war, waves of political campaigns against class enemies, and the Cultural Revolution, to name just a few traumatic experiences. Just how this later trauma may have affected the memory of Nanjing is beyond the scope of this paper, but is nonetheless an important question. Another problem here is the difficulty of separating official memory – constructed socio-politically by the state – from the deep memory privately held by its citizens. Given the state control of media in the PRC, testimonies or expression that deviate from the prescribed template of remembrance rarely made it to print. Public expression of the memory of the Nanjing Atrocity seems to have been very muted during the 1950s and 1960s. In 1951, when the PRC media launched an attack on American remilitarization of Japan, several survivors of the Nanjing Atrocity were summoned to recall their experience. The Communist-led struggle against reactionary classes, however, provided the most powerful theme in the public commemoration of the recent past during these years. The history of pre-1949 China, viewed this way, was above all the history in which the ruling classes, consisting of landlords and capitalists and represented by the Nationalist Government, exploited the masses and collaborated with foreign imperialists.9 Although exhibits of Japan’s wartime atrocities, especially those in north and northeastern China, did not vanish entirely, new museums were set up all over China to portray the brutality of the “reactionary classes,” such as landlords, against peasants. In Nanjing, annual commemorations were devoted to the “Communist martyrs” who had been executed by the Nationalist Government.10 Not surprisingly, those former Nationalist soldiers who had defended Nanjing and survived the atrocities found it inopportune to speak of their experience. In the early 1960s, for the first time, several former Nationalist generals, who had been captured and recently released by the PRC government, recounted their participation in the defence of Nanjing in an “internal publication”. They invariably condemned Chiang Kai-shek’s “capitulation policy” as a major cause for the heavy loss of Chinese lives.11 For most of the post-1949 period, when survivors were 142

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occasionally interviewed in China, they sometimes sought to redeem their passive suffering with some form of resistance. Feng Jingde, for instance, recalled watching Japanese as they wantonly slaughtered Chinese and resolved to kill some Japanese soldiers. Too weak to carry out this resolve, he “swallowed his tears and ran away”.12 Wu Changde, the survivor of a mass execution and a witness at the Tokyo Trial, had to burn all of his photos during the Cultural Revolution for fear of being accused of being a foreign spy.13 In the early 1960s, Mei Ruao, the Chinese judge at the Tokyo Trial, called on Chinese historians to study the Nanjing Massacre after having learned about a Japanese publication on the destruction caused by the atomic bombs. However, he was later accused of “stirring up national hatred and revenge” against the Japanese people, and some even considered that his writings about the Chinese defeat and misery in Nanjing amounted to hidden praise for the strength of Japanese troops.14 If retelling history during the 1950s and 1960s had a distinctive tone of class analysis, the recollections published after the Cultural Revolution, as Vera Scharwz has shown, sought to undo some of the damage. Those purged during the 1950s and 1960s were “rehabilitated”. Thus the stage was set for the 1980s and 1990s, when patriotism became the dominant theme. Just as the class struggle motif was replaced by patriotism in PRC historical education, the 1982 textbook controversy in Japan galvanized Chinese interest in the Nanjing Atrocity. For the first time, Japanese war crimes in China became the centre of the “memorial movement” and testimonies of Nanjing Atrocity survivors entered their most intensive phase. This time, the explicit purpose was not so much to bring about a conviction of accused criminals, as in 1946, but to construct a collective memory of the past. To counter what it perceived as renewed efforts in Japan to revive militarism, the Chinese government set about preserving and strengthening the memories of wartime Japanese aggression in China. The fortieth anniversary of the Japanese surrender – 15 August 1985 – saw the inauguration of the Memorial for the Compatriot Victims in the Nanjing Massacre by the Japanese Invading Troops. The construction of this 25,000-square-meter memorial complex, which began in late 1983 at a site of an alleged massacre, was a direct response to the textbook revision in Japan in the previous year. In addition to the numerous photographs and written accounts depicting Japanese brutality, on display in large glass showcases in the museum are human skeletons reportedly unearthed in the process of the construction. “VICTIMS 300,000” – the official Chinese estimate of those killed by the Japanese – was inscribed on the front wall in Chinese, English and Japanese. Although the project started as a local initiative, the name of the building was in the handwriting of the country’s paramount leader Deng Xiaoping, making this undertaking an unmistakably national commemoration. Meanwhile, smaller but no less conspicuous monuments commemorating the massacre victims mushroomed at over a dozen sites of Japanese massacres throughout the city. The inscriptions, often written by well-known local calligraphers, offer a vivid lesson of patriotism. Designated as a “Site for Patriotic Education” for the city’s 143

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school children and youth, the Nanjing Massacre Memorial seems to have become a great success. During the first decade after it opened, four million people visited the museum.15 In 1984, the Nanjing municipal government conducted a city-wide survey, which located 1,756 individuals who either survived or witnessed Japanese atrocities forty-seven years earlier. Among them, 176 were reported to have survived Japanese atrocities with scars still on their bodies, 514 had lost their relatives and forty-four women had been raped by Japanese soldiers.16 About one hundred of these testimonies were published in 1985 as part of the Source Material relating to the Horrible Massacre Committed by the Japanese Troops in Nanjing.17 In 1994, a greater number of testimonies – 642 in all – were published as a separate book edited by the director of the Nanjing Massacre Memorial.18 All these published testimonies were short pieces, averaging half a page each, and were neatly divided into categories of mass killing, isolated killings, rape, looting and arson. Offered half a century after the trials, these testimonies still aim at documenting the brutal acts of Japanese troops. They provide little sense of emotional content apart from apparent outrage, nor do they convey the complexity of lives inside the fallen city as compared with some of the longer memoirs published during the war. Of course, the lack of extended autobiographical works is partly due to the fact that most of these survivors had been poorly educated and depended on others to be heard. Even the televised interviews of some survivors were not much better, as they rarely lasted more than a few minutes. The only possible exception was made by Xu Zhigeng, a professional writer of baogao wenxue [reportage literature] who interviewed several dozen survivors in Nanjing between 1986 and 1987. By situating his interviews in context and allowing his subjects’ own voices to be heard, he produced perhaps the most riveting Chinese work on the subject.19 Although many of Xu’s subjects had been interviewed before, they described things not usually heard of elsewhere. For instance, some spoke about their cowardice; they described “bad elements” among Chinese in Nanjing.20 One was a Christian who told of God’s presence. After decades of silence, survivors’ testimonies are finally accorded a place in the PRC construction of the collective memory of the Nanjing Atrocity. They are now readily transmitted to the public to perform a prescribed role in the highly controlled collective memory. In contrast to Jewish survivors of the Holocaust, however, rarely have the Chinese been able to take the initiative to record their own recollections. Just as this collective memory is carefully managed by the Chinese state, the voices of the survivors and eyewitnesses remain highly fractured.

Japan: competing memories In contrast to China, postwar Japan has not undergone major traumatic events on the scale of a Cultural Revolution. Instead, public and private commemoration of Japan’s enormous sacrifice in the war has nurtured a sort of national consensus. To be sure, the American Occupation authorities sought to implant their own version 144

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of the war that emphasized Japanese aggression, and left wing and progressives have never ceased to remind their compatriots of the crimes of emperor-system militarism. As far as the country’s collective memory is concerned, however, victimhood was a basic common denominator across society.21 Though largely ignored by the mass media as a news event, the Nanjing Massacre began to resurface in popular magazines in the mid-1950s as part of a mini-boom of war reminiscences. Whereas some of these recollections confirmed the atrocities in Nanjing in general, former officers tended to emphasize Japan’s innocence. When Shimada Katsumi, who fought in Nanjing as a company commander, wrote for a monthly magazine in 1956, he probably expressed a common feeling: Come to think of it, since that day in 1937, it has been nearly 20 years in a hurry. That energetic company commander is now lingering over his remaining years. Even sharp impression of that time, which I had thought unforgettable for a lifetime, has disappeared much. With a pen in hand, I can only complain how uncertain human memory is.22 Yet, Shimada went on to describe the heightened sense of nervousness in the battlefield, pointing out that “the difference between combat and massacre is paper thin”. He disputed the claim of 430,000 victims as reported in a Chinese newspaper immediately after the war, claiming that it was seriously inflated. Another Japanese officer, Sasaki Tôichi was the first high-ranking officer involved in the operations at Nanjing in 1937 to write about his experience in China. Taken captive in Manchuria by the Soviets at the end of the war, he was transferred to the PRC where he remained in detention till 1956. As the commander of an army regiment, he described in his memoir how agitated Japanese soldiers shot many Chinese soldiers who came to surrender, despite the efforts of their superiors to restrain them.23 Thus, those who had not lived through the war began to learn about it. Despite their differences, what these reminiscences had in common was their attribution of atrocity primarily to the conditions of war. This was the decade of the boom in war accounts, and public interest in war reminiscences seemed strong enough to allow even for conflicting stories. In the end, most of such personal reminiscences were sketchy at best and amounted to nothing more than small ripples in the stream of postwar collective memory, without causing serious disturbance.24 Compared with these individual reminiscences that either conformed or challenged the established versions of the event in Nanjing, a few publications sought to establish new history. The Truth about the Nanjing Battle was one such effort. Written by the Chief of Staff of the 6th Division that fought in Nanjing, the author sought to clear the name of Tani Hisao, the Divisional Commander who had been condemned to death in Nanjing after the war, by arguing that the alleged atrocities were committed by other units. Significantly, the book’s preface was 145

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written by Araki Sadao, a former Japanese army minister who had been tried as a Class A war criminal.25 In the early 1970s, however, several events combined to bring about a fundamental change in the landscape of memory in Japan. America’s war in Vietnam had met increasing opposition from the Japanese public. In 1972, a Japanese soldier named Yokoi Shôichi, reappeared after hiding in the jungles of Guam for twenty-eight years. Following the visit of the United States President Richard Nixon, to Beijing, Japan’s postwar China policy became a national priority in Japan. In less than a year, Japan’s Prime Minister Tanaka Kakuei would make a historic visit to China, which led to the normalization of their diplomatic relations. Opinion polls showed that the number of Japanese who liked China was climbing as rapidly as the number of those who disliked China was declining.26 A government report issued in early 1972 noted that the issue of war responsibility now became a top issue in the public discussions on China.27 Several Japanese magazines had published stories on the Nanjing Massacre. In one of these, several officers reminisced about their participation. A few months later, journalist Honda Katsuichi would shock millions of readers in Japan with his series of reports on wartime Japanese atrocities in China, including the infamous Nanjing Massacre. Shortly after Honda Katsuichi’s widely read reportage, Suzuki Akira published a major exposé sensationally entitled, The Illusion of the Nanjing Massacre. Primarily based on testimonies of Japanese veterans, Suzuki presented “the other side of the story” and won a major non-fiction prize for his “courageous efforts”. Implicitly, Suzuki’s book suggests that Chinese victims’ testimonies, not backed by written documents, were simple exaggerations or fabrications and that Japanese veterans provide a more reliable source. Years later, Ara Ken’ichi, another nonfiction writer, would advance the proposition that if all Japanese participants in the Nanjing battle gathered their testimonies, historians would have the most authentic history of the event.28 Ara contacted sixty-seven officers and journalists who had been in Nanjing, and was able to interview about half of them. This proposition quickly ran into problems. In the wake of the textbook controversy, Kaikôsha, the fraternity association of the prewar army cadet school graduates, sent an urgent request to its 18,000 members for eyewitness accounts that could disprove the “so-called Nanjing Massacre”.29 At the centre of this effort was Unemoto Masami, a participant in the battle of Nanjing himself and a postwar instructor at Japan’s National Defence University. A firm believer in the innocence of the Japanese army, Unemoto received over one hundred replies and edited them into an eleven-part series in the association’s journal under the title “Battle History of Nanjing Based on Testimonies”. Contrary to Kaikôsha’s expectation, however, a number of its members offered testimonies confirming that the atrocity had taken place. Among them was a former officer under Matsui, who estimated that some 120,000 captives were killed in the Xiaguan area under orders of a staff officer. Although he later modified the figure to “no less than tens of thousands,” his testimony alone would seem to abort the entire effort to deny 146

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the atrocity. Confronted with other compelling evidence, an editor of Kaikôsha’s journal admitted that “there was no excuse for such massive illegal executions,” and stated that “as someone related to the former Japanese Army, I have to apologize deeply to the Chinese people.”30 Since the mid-1980s, other Japanese veterans, defying social pressure, came out to offer their own testimonies as evidence of various atrocities. A few spoke at public meetings organized by citizen groups. Some talked to reporters. Sone Kazuo, a soldier who participated in the Nanjing battle, turned his experience into something of a publishing success, releasing three books on the subject in one year.31 Azuma Shirô, a former soldier from the Kyoto area belonging to the 16th Division, became the most outspoken example. After his wartime journal was made public at the annual exhibition against war held in Kyoto, he came forward to relate his own experience of participating in atrocities in Nanjing and elsewhere in China. In 1987, he published his account.32 Since then, Azuma appeared at many citizens’ gatherings as well as in television programs, often giving very explicit descriptions of how Japanese soldiers like him would humiliate and rape Chinese women. He nonetheless attributed ultimate responsibility to the prewar Japanese army and the emperor. These soldiers who confessed to their crimes have often been dubbed “habitual confessors” by some of the Japanese press, which suggest that they derive pleasure in making these confessions without real remorse. Worse, some writers, Ara Ken’ichi among them, have exposed discrepancies in their reminiscences. Sone, for instance, was accused of lying about his rank. Azuma’s case is most interesting. In his book, Azuma described an incident in Nanjing in which his platoon leader (given a pseudonym) devised a particularly cruel method of killing a Chinese by putting him in a mailbag and throwing him into a pond with a hand grenade. His platoon leader, supported by other veterans, sued Azuma and his publisher for libel, claiming that Azuma had fabricated the incident. Apart from veterans, there were also many Japanese bystanders – some sixty Japanese journalists – in Nanjing as the city fell. Writing for a special issue of the popular monthly, Bungei Shunju, Imai Masatake, a former correspondent for Asahi Shimbun, recalled witnessing the execution of Chinese men by Japanese troops and rescuing two Chinese who were not soldiers. He also described listening to mass executions near the river at night. Hata Kensuke wrote in 1957 about the fierce “White Tiger” Unit which massacred Chinese captives in Nanjing.33 Sato Shunjû, then a young photographer with the Tokyo Nichi Nichi Shimbun, vividly recalled the scene of Chinese soldiers being executed at a military barracks inside Nanjing. Matsumoto Shigeharu, who headed Japan’s semi-official Domei news agency in Shanghai, recalled a scene in which General Matsui wept at the breakdown of discipline of his commanders in Nanjing. Although some of the journalists denied the scale of massacre was as large as the Chinese had alleged, there was a greater willingness to tell it “as it was”. Japanese testimonies concerning the event in Nanjing have thus differed considerably. Instead of being managed by the state, they are often affected by 147

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personal as well as institutional factors. As far as the content is concerned, they sometimes offer diametrically opposite conclusions.

Cross-national transmissions In discussing collective memories of the Second World War, an area often overlooked is the transmission of memory between China and Japan. To be sure, before the two countries restored diplomatic relations in 1972, Japan and China had little direct contact and channels of transmission might appear to have been very limited. This phenomenon raises questions of how memories can be transmitted across national boundaries, and what effect such transmission may have. Having examined the transmission of experience over time, let us look at the transmission of experience across space.34 As already mentioned, several Chinese eyewitnesses and survivors were brought to the witness stand at the Tokyo Tribunal in 1947. Their testimonies seem to have little impact on the Japanese public in general, which was preoccupied with economic poverty. In 1956, all Japanese held in PRC prisons were released and repatriated to Japan. Many of them began talking about their individual experiences of participation in Japanese aggression against China. An Association of Returnees from China (Chûgoku kikansha renraku kai) was established. In 1957, Kôbunsha, a subsidiary of the publishing giant, Kôdansha, published Sankô (Burn All, Kill All, Loot All), referring to the alleged Japanese brutal strategy against Communist-led guerrillas in North China. The book was based on “literature-style renditions of concrete facts of their own crimes from an objective perspective”. As the first postwar Japanese publication based on first-person accounts of brutalities in China, the book caused a minor sensation. The first run of 50,000 copies was sold out in three weeks.35 Although the Nanjing Atrocity was not a subject of the book, Japanese reaction was symptomatic. Following pressure from conservative commentators and veterans – a member of the right-wing group even attacked the publisher – the publisher declined to bring out a second run. The 1960s saw the steady increase in “non-governmental exchanges” between Japan and China, although opinion polls in Japan continued to show a largely unfavorable image of China throughout the decade.36 The number of Japanese visiting China, however, increased considerably after 1962, reaching an all-time high in 1965.37 A number of these visitors returned from China with renewed memories of Japanese wartime atrocities. In 1965, for instance, members from the Association of Returnees from China visited areas in China ravaged by war. In Nanjing, they were briefed by a Chinese official on the Japanese massacre of 1937, in which “300,000 Chinese were killed in just ten days.” Upon returning to Japan, these veterans published their report, an excerpt of which was printed in a newspaper promoting Sino-Japanese friendship. The article described major massacres in the Nanjing area, including the infamous killing contest between two Japanese officers. It concluded by quoting the Chinese official as saying “now we emphasize Sino-Japanese friendship rather than such unpleasant memories.”38 148

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A few other Japanese visitors echoed such sentiments. After visiting Nanjing in 1967, Niijima Atsuyoshi, a professor of Chinese literature at Waseda University, wrote about the Nanjing Atrocity in Japanese magazines and organized an open discussion on the subject at the University of Tokyo.39 Not everyone returning from visits to China, however, was persuaded by the Chinese versions. Ôya Sôichi, a well-known Japanese commentator who had been in Nanjing as a newspaper reporter immediately after its fall in 1937, led an investigation group to China at the onset of the Cultural Revolution in 1966. At a meeting with the Chinese officials in Nanjing, Ôya specifically asked about the Nanjing Atrocity. He raised doubts over the figure of 300,000 victims, and one-third of buildings burnt, but he also admitted later that “before and after entering the city, it is true that there was a considerable massacre.”40 While these tales of the Nanjing Atrocity were beginning to trickle back to Japan, no single individual did more than Honda Katsuichi to alter Japan’s collective memory of the war in China. During the summer of 1971, Honda embarked on a forty-day trip in China, visiting various locations of Japanese wartime atrocities and collecting eyewitness accounts. During his two-day stopover in Nanjing, Honda interviewed four Chinese survivors. Chen Degui, 53 years old, described the harrowing experience of surviving a mass execution by the river and had visible scars on his body. Two other Chinese, 50 and 60 years old, respectively, recalled Japanese rape and wanton killing in the suburbs of Nanjing. In addition to telling how he lost his parents and a sister to the Japanese soldiers, 43-year old Jiang Fugeng apparently went beyond his personal experience to give Honda an overall account of the Japanese atrocities in Nanjing. Jiang even referred to the infamous case of the “killing contest” between two Japanese officers. Like other informants, Jiang concluded by speaking of their improved lives under the PRC and by making clear distinctions between Japanese people and Japanese militarism: “The fact that we are reminiscing our past experience before you is the expression of Chinese people’s friendship toward Japanese people.”41 After returning to Japan, Honda serialized his reports in the Asahi Shimbun and its weekly magazines. In these reports, Honda confronted the Japanese public with the Chinese experience of war for the first time in postwar Japan. Through the voices of Chinese victims, he recounted Japanese atrocities in many areas of China, including Nanjing. Honda included many photographs of scarred bodies of the victims, thus bringing home for the first time the real presence of Chinese victims. Although Chinese accounts have occasionally appeared in the Japanese press, Honda’s reports, published by Japan’s premier newspaper, seized national attention. Later he published them in a popular book, The Journey in China.42 His reports also invited many vehement attacks – some accused him of repeating Chinese propaganda, others defended the reputation of the imperial Japanese army. Honda, however, stood by his decision to present truthfully the views of the Chinese survivors. In the early 1980s, Honda went to China again, this time along the route of Japanese advance from Shanghai to Nanjing. He interviewed more 149

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Chinese victims of Japanese atrocities in the entire area, thus demonstrating that the pattern of brutality had begun with the battle in Shanghai.43 Since the late 1980s, there have been some new developments of transmission, as the memory processes of Japan and China have also begun to converge. For the first time, a few Chinese survivors were invited by citizens’ groups in Japan to speak directly to the Japanese audience. In return, numerous Japanese soldiers have gone to China and paid visits to such sites as the memorial dedicated to the Chinese victims of the Nanjing Massacre. Azuma Shirô, for example, has made several trips to China and received considerable press coverage. After he was sued for libel, Azuma went to Nanjing to gather corroborating evidence to support his contentions. The Chinese reaction was to give overwhelming support and proof that his account was verifiable. When Azuma’s appeal was struck down at the Higher Court, the Chinese official press even protested. At the same time, it is apparent that when memories are transmitted between countries, they inevitably take on new meanings.

Conclusions: experience, memory, evidence What have we learned from this investigation of the relationship between individual testimonies and collective memories? First, whatever may be said about collective memories of the Nanjing Atrocity, it is clear that for most individuals involved, silence was not equal to amnesia. In fact, individual testimonies concerning the Nanjing Atrocity (including those who deny it) have appeared in a variety of forms and have served different purposes. They have served for the postwar war crimes trials, at which some took the witness stand. They have also been featured in books written by historians and journalists, mostly as evidence of what had happened. Some of those individuals have even published their own accounts. Second, there is a considerable difference between how individual testimonies have been transmitted in China and Japan. In China, government institutions have played a much greater role, whether in the news media, publications, or educational processes. Strong as the state is, however, it has not been able to dictate private memory. In Japan while the government also plays an important role, it competes with interest groups – veteran groups as well as activist groups. Those veterans or journalists have more independent voices. In addition, the media often provides easy access to individuals. Even then, although one testimony may differ drastically in details or tone from another, there is an implicit orthodoxy to which all these testimonies must conform. What we have seen here is that those individuals who experienced the event always have to speak to an existing framework of reference. This reality also shows that different societies, at different times, present different frameworks of reference for individuals to participate in memory exercises. There is no question that these frameworks may alter the content and character of testimonies. In his study of the videotaped testimonies of Holocaust survivors, Lawrence Langer, has 150

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suggested distinguishing deep memory from common memory.44 Individual testimony is therefore considered “a modest, difficult effort to rescue individual identity and some sense of the moral purpose in the aftermath of utter devastation.” Halbwachs has also noted that “the individual participates in two types of memory – individual memory and collective memory. He adopts a quite different, even contrary, attitude as he participates in one or the other … In particular, the individual memory, in order to corroborate and make precise and even to cover the gaps in its remembrances, relies upon, relocates itself within, and momentarily merges with, the collective memory.”45 To negotiate between these different frameworks of reference, whether between different times or different societies, can bring about discomfort or misunderstanding. Despite these various constraints, individual testimonies have provided a powerful force in constructing the collective memories of the Nanjing Atrocity. As these individuals represent the direct link to the event, both the public and historians have turned to them to satisfy their need for authenticity and evidence. As the preface to the collection of testimonies of Chinese survivors puts it, “their scars as well as their indescribable teary accusations, prove beyond any doubt that the ‘Nanjing Massacre’ not only indeed happened, but also has left indelible deep wounds in the feelings and heart of the Chinese people”.46 Although those printed testimonies leaned heavily toward the former, this Chinese author has, perhaps inadvertently, outlined two functions of individual testimonies: evidential and psychological. Making this distinction is important to our understanding of the problematic relationship between individual testimonies and collective memories. Historians, insofar as they write history for the public, are in the business of constructing collective memories. While some still question the veracity of oral testimonies and thus rely only on written records, most would treat individual testimonies as evidence. Here they do face considerable epistemological problems. While some believe emotionally traumatic memories are relatively immune to decay and distortion even long after the original experience, many others remain skeptical.47 Individual testimonies are always fluid. The case of one Japanese veteran shows the problematic nature of oral testimonies. Honda Katsuichi interviewed Tanaka Saburo, who participated in the killing of Chinese prisoners of war. While hospitalized shortly after the events, he had prepared a sketch with diagrams, indicating some 13,500 Chinese had been killed. After Honda’s report was published in the newspaper and his real name revealed in another major daily, Tanaka revised his own estimate downward to 5,000–6,000.48 As Honda himself admits, it is ultimately impossible to verify the truthfulness of “experience”. On this issue, I think there is no fundamental difference between a living person’s [testimony] and a written source. Testimonies as expressions of emotion are also important in the construction of collective memories, which inevitably appeal to the emotions of the public. No one can fail to detect the emotional effect of a survivor testifying to his or her experience of suffering. For that reason, local high school students were organized 151

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in 1990 to interview survivors, but evidently primarily as an exercise in patriotic education. However, as sixty years – the equivalent of two generations – have passed since that traumatic event in Nanjing, many of the survivors, like Wu Changde, have passed way. Important questions still remain, however, as we ponder the implication of the disappearance of the last participant in any event. Once a survivor passes away, something irreplaceable is lost even if testimonies may be preserved in print or visual forms. The emotional aspects are not entirely lost, however, as the population internalize those emotions. In this way, experience inevitably becomes trans-generational experience. Ultimately, then, collective memory will always have to wrestle with the tension between the need to verify, on the one hand, and the need to gratify, on the other.

Notes 1 Simone de Beauvoir, The Long March, trans. by Austryn Wainhouse (Cleveland: The World Publishing Company, 1958), p. 438. 2 Maurice Halbwachs, The Collective Memory, trans. Francis J. Ditter, Jr. and Vida Yazdi Ditter (New York: Harper Colophone Books, 1980), 48. For other theoretical perspectives, see Paul Connerton, How Societies Remember (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989); James Fentress and Chris Wickham, Social Memory (Oxford: Blackwell, 1992). Useful collection of case studies include David Middleton and Derek Edwards, eds, Collective Remembering (London: SAGE Publications, 1990); James W. Pennebaker et al., eds, Collective Memory of Political Events: Social Psychological Perspectives (Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1997). 3 Joan W. Scott, ‘The Evidence of Experience,’ Critical Inquiry 17 (Summer, 1991), 777. For a more in-depth discussion, see C. A. J. Coady, Testimony: A Philosophical Study (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992). An excellent work that is concerned with the role that experience plays in the construction of memory at individual and collective levels is Iwona Irwin-Zarecka, Frames of Remembrance: The Dynamics of Collective Memory (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 1994). 4 For samples of such testimonies, see Harold Timperley, Japanese Terror in China (New York: Modern Age Books, 1938), also reprinted in Library of Nanjing et al., comp., Qin-Hua Rijun Nanjing datusha shiliao (Nanjing: Jiangsu guji chubanshe, 1985), pp. 1–156. 5 Excerpts from the ‘Minutes of the Second meeting of the Committee Investigating the Enemy crimes in the Nanjing Massacre’ (1 July 1946), in the Second Archives of China et al. comp., Qin-Hua Rijun Nanjing datusha dang’an (Nanjing: Jiangsu guji chubanshe, 1987), pp. 538–9. Hereafter referred to as Dang’an. 6 “A Brief Account on Nanjing Provisional Council Assisting in the Investigation of the Nanjing Massacre” (November 1946), in Dang’an, p. 555. 7 Dang’an, p. 542. 8 Dang’an. 9 On ideological pitfalls affecting historians in the PRC, see essays in Albert Feuerwerker, ed., History in Communist China (Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press, 1968) and Jonathan Unger, ed., Using the Past to Serve the Present: Historiography and Politics in Contemporary China (Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 1993). It is noteworthy that none of the essays in these two volumes addressed the historiography of the Sino-Japanese War (1937–45). The best study of memory in PRC, placed in a comparative perspective, is Rubie S. Watson, ed., Memory, History, and Opposition under State Socialism (Santa Fe, New Mexico: School of American Research Press, 1994).

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10 For instance, when a Japanese scholar visited Nanjing in 1965, most of his description was about KMT oppression. Andô Hikotarô, Chûgoku tsûshin (Tokyo: Dai’an, 1966), pp. 251–9. 11 See the recollection of former Nationalist General Du Yuming and others in Wenshi ziliao xuanji 12 (December 1960). 12 Xinhua ribao (23 and 24, February 1951). 13 Xu Zhigeng, Nanjing datusha: Mijizhe de zhengyan (Beijing: Kunlun chubanshe, 1987), p. 91. 14 Mei Xiao-ao, “Nanjing datusha ji qita: Xianfu Mei Ruao de ixie kanfa” in Chen Anji, ed., Qin-Hua Rijun Nanjing datusha shi guiji yantaohui (Hefei: Anhui daxue chubanshe, 1998), pp. 446–53. 15 The figure was given by a curator at the memorial. Asahi Shimbun (26 June 1995) [Saitama]. See also Duan Yueping, “Qin-Hua Rijun Nanjing Datusha Yunan Tongbao Jinianguan de zhanlan huodong” Kang-Ri zhanzheng yanjiu (1992), 175–89; Li Haibo, “Unforgettable Atrocity,” Beijing Review (14–20 August 1995), p. 22. 16 Ting, Y.L., “Nanjing Massacre: A Dark Page in History,” Beijing Review (2 September 1985), p. 20. 17 See, Qin-Hua Rijun Nanjing datusha shiliao, pp. 399–487. 18 Zhu Chengshan, ed., Qin-Hua Rijun Nanjing datusha xinchunzhe zhengyanji (Nanjing: Nanjing daxue chubanshe, 1994). 19 Xu Zhigeng, Nanjing datusha. A Taiwanese reprint was issued in 1989. It has also been published in an English translation in China as, Lest We Forget: Nanjing Massacre, 1937 (Beijing: Panda Books/Chinese Literature Press, 1995) but it has received little attention in the West. 20 Zhang Yuzhen, in Xu, Nanjing datusha, p. 131. 21 For general works on memories of war in Japan, see George Hicks, Japan’s War Memories: Amnesia or Concealment (London: Ashgate, 1997). For a comparative perspective, see Ian Buruma, The Wages of Guilt: Memories of War in Germany and Japan (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1994). 22 Shimada Katsumi, “Nankin kôryakusen to gyakusatsu jiken,” Tokushû Jinbutsu Orai (June 1956), 106 –111. 23 Sasaki Tôichi, Aru gunjin no jiden (Tokyo: Keisô shibô, 1967). 24 For a perceptive analysis of the postwar “boom in war stories” in Japan, see Yoshida Yutaka, Nihonjin no sensô kan: Sengoshi no naka no hen’yô (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1995), esp. 85–100. 25 Shimono Ikkaku and Gôtô Kôsaku, Nankin sakusen no shinsô: (Kumamoto) Dai-6-shidan senki (Tokyo: Tokyo jôhôsha, 1966). 26 The former finally surpassed the latter for the first time between July and September of 1972, around the time Tanaka announced his visit to Beijing. NHK Broadcasting Public Opinion Research Institute, Zusetsu Sengô seron shi, 2nd edn (Tokyo: NHK Bukkusu, 1982), pp. 180–1. 27 Quoted in Yoshida, Nihonjin no sensô kan, 133. 28 Ara Ken’ichi, Kikigaki Nankin jiken (Tokyo: Tosho shuppansha, 1987). 29 “Iwayuru ‘Nankin jiken’ ni kansuru jôhô teikyô no onegai,” Kaikô 395 (November 1983), 35–7. 30 Katokawa Kôtarô, “Shôgen ni yoru Nankin senshi: Sono sôkatsu teki kôsatsu,” Kaikô 411 (March 1985), 9–18. 31 Sone Kazuo, Shiki Nankin gyakusatsu (Tokyo: Sairyûsha, 1986), Zoku shiki Nankin gyakusatsu and Nankin gyakusatsu to sensô. 32 Azuma Shirô, Waga Nankin puraton (Tokyo: Aoki shoten, 1987). 33 Hata Kensuke, “Hyoryô no ketsu ni manireta Byakko Butai,” Nihon Shûhô (25 February 1957), 13–15; Imai Masatake, “Nankin jonai no tairyô satsujin,” Tokushû Bungei Shunju (5 December 1956), 154–8.

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34 For recent works that address this issue of war memory in a regional or cross-national perspective, see Gerrit W. Gong, ed., Remembering and Forgetting: The Legacy of War and Peace in East Asia (Washington DC: CSIS, 1996); Caroline Rose, Interpreting History in Sino-Japanese Relations DC: A Case Study in Decision-Making (London, 1998). 35 Association of Returnees from China, Katte kita senhan tachi no gohansei: Chûgoku kikansha renrakukai no 40-nen (Osaka: Shinpu shobô, 1996). 36 NHK Broadcasting Public Opinion Research Institute, Zusetsu Sengo seron shi, 180–1. 37 For annual numbers of Japanese visitors to China between 1949 and 1969, see the China Institute comp., Chûgoku nenkan 1970 (Tokyo: Taishûdo, 1970), p. 302. 38 See, for example, Nit-Chû yûkô shinbun (15 August 1966). 39 Niijima Atsuyoshi, “Rittai kôsei Nankin daigyakusatsu,” Shinhyô (May 1971), 48–57. 40 See “Ôya kôsatsu kumi no Chûkyô hôkoku,” Sande Mainichi (Special issue) (22 October 1966), 77–9. See also Hora Tomio, Nankin jiken (Tokyo: Shin jinbutsu ôraisha, 1972), 157–8, 193. 41 Honda, 262. 42 Honda Katsuichi, Chûgoku no tabi (Tokyo: Asahi shinbunsha, 1971); in Chinese translation as Zhongguo zhi xing (Hong Kong: Sihai chubanshe, 1972). 43 Honda Katsuichi, Nankin e no michi_(Tokyo: Asahi shimbunsha, 1987). 44 Lawrence Langer, Holocaust Testimonies: The Ruins of Memory (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1992). 45 Halbwachs, The Collective Memory, pp. 50–1. 46 Chen Anji, Nanjing datusha, p. 3. 47 See, for example, Daniel L. Schacter, ed., Memory Distortion: How Minds, Brains, and Societies Reconstruct the Past (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1995), pp. 26–7. 48 For a lively discussion of the potential as well as problems of oral testimonies, see “Zadankai II: Nyûginia kôchi kara Nankin e,” Rekishigaku kenkyû 568 (June 1987), pp. 51–72.

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9 THIRTY THOUSAND BULLETS Remembering political repression in Mongolia Christopher Kaplonski

As a matter of fact I wanted to thank you for asking about [the repression] … . this way I was able to tell it to someone and I felt so much better. This pain is carried by people for decades, nobody asks them to share their stories, and to tell it to someone who is interested in them, and as a human and as a scholar is trying to find out why this kind of thing could have happened is a big relief for them.

These words were part of the reply of a Mongolian woman who had answered a request I had posted on the Internet looking for people willing to talk about the political repression in Mongolia in the Stalinist era as a supplement to those I had interviewed in Mongolia in the fall of 1997. The woman’s grandfather had been killed during the great purges of the late 1930s and as with all too many other Mongolians, his fate was not known for decades. His relatives, like so many others, continued to hope he was still alive somewhere in the Soviet Gulag.1 The story was an all-too-common one in Mongolia. It was also a story that had not been told publicly, if at all, for decades. In the fall of 1997 when I first began to look at the issue of political violence in Mongolia, many people seemed thankful to have an outlet for their histories. The topic of political repression was being openly discussed and debated. Although these issues had been publicly considered since the collapse of socialism in 1990, the late 1990s saw a significant shift in how and why the repression was discussed. In 1997, many people went to the Memorial Museum for the Victims of Political Repression (which had opened in 1996) in search of information on their relatives. This public recognition of the repression was a relatively new development. It was not until 1996 that the government established an official day of commemoration for the victims. In 1997, a memorial sculpture was set up in downtown Ulaanbaatar. Sixty years of silence weighed heavily on the families of the repressed. In fact, I had gone to Mongolia to study not political repression but rather collectivisation, which had occurred in the 1950s. Most people, however, did not want to talk about collectivisation. It was not very interesting to them. 155

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Instead they wanted to talk about the fate of their parents, grandparents and other relatives in the late 1930s. In telling these stories, people were unburdening themselves, but they were also doing more than that. They were also seeking an understanding of, and reconciliation with, the events of the past. (It can also be argued that there were more pragmatic reasons for this attention, a point I take up below.) In focusing on this search for an understanding of political repression in Mongolia and the related political issues, I do not wish to downplay the suffering the repression caused. Rather, this chapter is an attempt to work out some of the issues related to the remembrance of the purges, and is part of a larger, on-going project. Political repression and politically motivated killings occurred throughout the socialist period. Although the killings began in the early 1920s and reportedly continued until 1985,2 the period of the greatest repression was the late 1930s. In a brief span of about eighteen months, from late 1937 to early 1939, almost an entire stratum of Mongolian society was eliminated. Starting in the fall of 1937, at least 22,000 people were killed out of a population which numbered at most 800,000.3 Although the victims came from all levels of society, many of them – at least 18,000 – were Buddhist lamas. Others were political and academic figures, or nobility, although ordinary workers and herders were also included. Buriad Mongols also suffered disproportionately, partly because they were well represented in the intelligentsia and partly because many of them had previously fled from Siberia shortly after the Bolshevik victory and were, therefore, suspected of being disloyal. With the loosening of socialist control in the late 1980s, people began to search for information on their lost relatives. It became possible to petition the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the KGB for information. One woman summarised the process: In 1989 when the political situation started to change we submitted an application to the Dotood Yam (a most despised term) otherwise known as the Mongolian KGB, and that’s when they went over [my grandfather’s] case again. It was sent to the Supreme Court which in turn issued us a palm-sized paper saying that my grandfather was wrongly accused and killed and thus he was posthumously acquitted. That acquittal is the only evidence of this man’s existence that remains in the possession of his family. At the same time, books and newspaper articles on the repression were published, but not until the mid- to late-1990s did the repression become a key element in public discourse. Even the woman just quoted, actively involved in the search for information, felt that the issue was not of overwhelming concern for most of the public. This statement requires some clarification. Although articles and books were being published, and people were telling their stories, it does not seem to me 156

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that the whole issue assumed the form of a coherent discourse until later in the decade. History was being re-evaluated and rewritten in the early 1990s, but this re-evaluation focused predominantly on the non-socialist past. Chinggis Khaan and others from the more distant past were more prominent figures for discussion than the repression. The early publications dealing with the issue of political repression seem to reflect not only a genuine search for answers, and the revealing of previously guarded knowledge, but also political manoeuvering. These publications, and the political rehabilitations that took place at the same time, I think, were in part an attempt by the ruling Mongolian People’s Revolutionary Party (MAHN)4 to establish a new political legitimacy by distancing itself from the excesses of socialism. It is significant in this context that the earliest biographies that I am aware of about two of the earliest and most famous victims – Bodoo and Danzan – were published by the Party History Institute attached to the MAHN Central Committee. In addition, the earliest articles in MAHN’s newpaper, Ünen (Truth) focused on specific, symbolically important figures rather than repression in general. This attempted rehabilitation coincided with the desire of the democratic parties to distance post-socialist Mongolia from the socialist period with the result that the repression was, at this stage, a relatively uncontested historical topic. Only later, as a new, non-socialist identity began to coalesce, did people begin to look more critically at the issue of repression, a point I will expand upon later. The political attention to a repressive past which took place in Mongolia in the mid- to late-1990s has parallels with the situations in South Africa and elsewhere. Writing on the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission, the South African scholar and poet, Ingrid de Kok has noted: ‘It is in the multiplicity of partial versions and experiences, composed and recomposed within sight of each other, that truth “as a thing of this world,” in Foucault’s phrase, will emerge’.5 The Truth and Reconciliation Commission will not hand down some definitive account of the apartheid era. Rather it will provide one privileged voice in the debate which de Kok likens to ‘the personal experience of mourning, recovery and remembrance’.6 There is no official equivalent to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in Mongolia. Neither have there been any purges of the old socialist officials or bureaucracy. There was a commission working on rehabilitating the falsely (hils) repressed,7 but it laboured quietly, largely out of the public eye. The public attention and discussion that has surfaced in Mongolia in the late 1990s, however, served largely the same function as the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission. It began defining, if not necessarily limiting, the relevant experiences and memories of political repression. In seeking to assess issues of culpability and blame, people in Mongolia were seeking an understanding of, and reconciliation with their own past. Foucault, in talking of truth ‘as a thing in this world’, notes that we should talk of a ‘regime of truth’; truth is not an ‘outside power’. ‘Truth is linked in a circular relation with systems of power which produce and sustain it, and to effects of power which it induces and which extend it. A “regime” of truth’.8 In other words, 157

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the truth of a particular time or place cannot be divorced from the larger context in which it is situated. The ‘systems of power’ include of course the overtly political structures, but also encompass broader social, economic and cultural forms as well. What we are witnessing in Mongolia today can be understood in these terms. Socialism had provided a particular regime of truth. While it may have been, and was, contested, it nonetheless structured and was structured by the systems of power. In Mongolia, opposition to the socialist agenda seems to have been often less organised and visible than elsewhere in the Soviet bloc from the 1950s onward.9 This structuring of the truth was particularly so with respect to the repressed and their relatives. The repressed had been enemies of the people, and their descendants were marked as children of enemies; all people had to declare on job and school applications and other official documents whether or not they had repressed-relatives within the preceding two generations.10 Significantly in the context of structuring truth, even relatives of the repressed I interviewed in 1997 said they often assumed others had been ‘truly’ guilty during the socialist period. They thought their relatives had been mistakenly arrested, but not others. Under socialism, people did not talk about the repression, often not even among family members. A Mongolian college student told me: One member of my family was a high-ranking monk in a rural monastery, and he got killed just because he was a monk. When I was a small boy, my grandma used to talk about him a little bit, but my mom always stopped her for talking ‘nonsense’. In 1962, it is true, MAHN condemned the cult of personality that had grown around Choibalsan, Mongolia’s Stalin. Choibalsan was also criticised for causing the suffering of ‘hundreds’ of innocents, but most of his victims remained unrehabilitated.11 Those who were rehabilitated at this time, however, were political figures, not lamas. It should be kept in mind that 1962 was also the year that Tömör-Ochir, a Central Committee secretary, was removed from power for his role in, what were decried as the overly nationalist planned, celebrations of the 800th anniversary of Chinggis Khaan’s birth.12 It is not clear to me yet to what degree people were aware during the socialist period of the full extent of the purges. Their knowledge would depend, I think, in large part upon personal experience and even geographical location, as certain areas are said to have suffered considerable loss of the adult male population during the repression. Official accounts of the period of the purges under socialism carried relatively innocuous titles such as The resolution of the Question of the Monasteries and Lamas in the Mongolian People’s Republic.13 Such texts, of course, did not talk explicitly of the purges either. Instead they offered such descriptions as: In 1937–39 [the height of the repression], revolutionary measures completely destroyed the cruel power of the high lamas, who were clearly 158

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shown to be the implacable enemies of MAHN and the governing class. … From only January 1937 until January 1938, 18214 lamas went to the countryside [i.e. left the monasteries].14 With the collapse of socialism, new regimes of truth became both possible and necessary. The issue of political repression was only part of the reassessment of the past, and at first, as we have seen, it was not the most prominent part. The 1990s have witnessed at least two main regimes of truth that blend into each other. The first, prominent in the early 1990s, constructed a history that largely excluded the socialist past. Socialism was a foreign imposition, the handiwork of the Soviets. The key period of interest was the pre-socialist past, which was looked to for moral, spiritual and political guidance. At this point, the Mongolian past that mattered was the past of Chinggis Khaan and Buddhism. It did not matter that Chinggis Khaan was not ‘really’ a Buddhist; most of the statues of him at the time showed him in the pose of a Buddha, dispensing wisdom, and more important, order. This particular reinterpretation was strengthened by numerous little books of zarlig or bilig, Chinggis Khaan’s decrees and words of wisdom. These booklets were intended to provide moral exemplars for the present period of uncertainty, particularly as they tended to focus on political and moral issues. ‘Everyone’s work has equal rights, and you will not discriminate between rich and poor, nobles and commoners’, said one decree credited to Chinggis Khaan. ‘I may die, but let my state live on after me’, ran another – a plaintive cry for order and calm in the chaotic period of the early 1990s.15 Chinggis Khaan was recast as a democrat who could provide wise leadership for the present democratic movement. When complaining about the perceived lack of leadership in the country, people looked to Chinggis Khaan, not the socialist leaders, as a role model. During this period the repression remained largely a personal issue, or was talked about with a fairly clear political motive. The incidents of repression that were written about tended to be about prominent politicians and other figures with obvious symbolic capital. A second regime of discourse came into play later in the 1990s. On the larger scale, this regime involved a turning to the socialist past, and reclaiming it as a Mongolian past. Through the repeated appeals to Mongolness and tradition in the early 1990s, what it meant to be a ‘true Mongol’ had crystallised around the concepts of Buddhism and a still vague appeal to tradition. The fascinating dictionaries of customs and tradition (how to be a ‘real’ Mongolian, in other words) common in the early 1990s had largely disappeared from the bookstore shelves [RBC1].16 They were being replaced by, among other things, works on the socialist era and the repression.17 It was now both safe and necessary to turn to the socialist past and incorporate it also into Mongolian history. More specifically, although some Mongolians continued to hold the repression as the work of the Soviets, others began to see it as a purely Mongolian affair. The Soviets had a hand in it – that much was undeniable – but the second school of thought no longer considered that this external involvement excused the Mongolians. 159

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Let me leave aside these large patterns, which I will return to later. I instead quote a passage from a recent Mongolian history book, as it serves to bring into relief some of the issues that have arisen in Mongolia in trying to deal with the issue of political repression. If [then Prime Minister] Amar freed some prisoners to celebrate the fifteenth anniversary of the Revolution [in 1936], then Stalin commemorated the fifteenth anniversary by sending Choibalsan a present four days later. The gift included four rifles and thirty thousand bullets. Did this mean that thirty thousand Mongols out of the population of eight hundred thousand were to be destroyed? Stalin was an Oriental man. He appreciated symbolic gestures and expressions of irony and humor. As it turned out later, the number of people killed by Choibalsan was in fact about thirty thousand.18 The heart of this passage is the claim of the gift. Whether the story is true or not may be interesting, but ultimately irrelevant. It is the function of the story here that matters. The story of the gift ultimately exonerates Choibalsan from responsibility for the deaths. As almost any anthropologist will tell you, giving a gift creates an obligation in the recipient. The purges are thus not only foreshadowed by this story, but rendered almost obligatory. The implications of this story were clear to others besides anthropologists. One former ambassador I interviewed gave Baabar much credit for writing the book. Baabar is a politician trained as a biochemist, after all. But he had no use for what he saw as Baabar’s excusing of Choibalsan’s actions. Although the ambassador did not mention this passage explicitly, he clearly saw Baabar as adopting the view that ‘if Choibalsan hadn’t done it, someone else would have’, in effect laying the responsibility solely on the Soviets. The Mongolians were merely helpless puppets in this view. Mongolia was indeed an independent country during the socialist period, the former ambassador told me. They therefore bore the responsibility for their own actions, whatever role the Soviets may have had. It was a ‘hard fact’ but one that had to be faced. Taken together, the passage from the history book and the ambassador’s comments illustrate the key approaches to understanding the construction of the regimes of truth currently taking place. One can not ignore the repression itself and the legacy it left behind. One would be hard-pressed, I think, to find a family without any repressed-relatives. Yet the repression also has a larger significance in contemporary post-socialist Mongolia. Attitudes towards, and memories of, the repression of the socialist period are markers in the quest for an acceptable construction of truth and reconciliation. They are not only attempts to deal with loss and grief at the personal level, but the national one as well. But they are even more than this. They are also part of an attempt to construct an understanding of the socialist past more generally. 160

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The one name most associated with the repression is H. Choibalsan, mentioned in the passage above.19 He is most often glossed as ‘Mongolia’s Stalin’, but let me take a moment to review his biography a bit more fully. Choibalsan was born in the eastern part of Mongolia in 1895. He was originally educated in a monastery, a common enough practice at the time. In his teens, he left the monastery and went to Hüree (the capital, now Ulaanbaatar) in 1912. Mongolian independence had just been declared in 1911, following the fall of the Qing dynasty.20 He received additional education in Hüree and Irkutsk in Siberia from the Russians. Choibalsan was active during the late teens in one of the early secret revolutionary groups, and became known as one of the ‘First Seven’ – the seven Mongolian revolutionaries who went to the Soviet Union to seek aid in 1920. His subsequent political career was one of an almost meteoric rise, although Baabar claims that at first Choibalsan was rather unremarkable, and only became of interest to the Soviets when they realised his value as a puppet leader.21 He was elected a member of the provisional socialist government in 1921, and held a wide variety of posts during the early socialist years, usually concurrently. He was himself apparently a suspect in one of the earlier purges.22 In perhaps a foreshadowing of his later role, in the late 1920s and early 1930s, he was in charge of the confiscation of the property of feudal lords. This and related actions precipitated a civil war, forcing the postponement of certain measures. As a result, full-scale collectivisation was not achieved until the 1950s. In 1935, Choibalsan was appointed first deputy prime minister. He received a gift of twenty Soviet GAZ automobiles from the Soviet Union at the time, indicative of his rising status. In 1936, the Office of Internal Security (Dotoodyg Hamgaalah Gazar) was upgraded to the Ministry of Internal Affairs, and Choibalsan was named minister, a post he held until 1940. In 1939 he was appointed prime minister, and ruled the country until his death from cancer in 1952. Choibalsan was widely mourned at his passing, and suggestions flooded into the government for ways to honour him. Eleven days after his death, an official in the government reported that eight aimags (provinces), forty-one groups and 428 individuals had written to suggest his body be preserved as Lenin’s was.23 His remains, like those of Sühbaatar (founder of the People’s Republic, sometimes called Mongolia’s Lenin) were eventually embalmed and placed in a mausoleum in front of the main government building. The power of the Mongolian state and party apparatus was never so concentrated in a single person either before or after Choibalsan. Yet even with the collapse of socialism in 1990, there was no sudden and total backlash against him, as might have been expected. Stalin’s statue, which used to stand in front of the State Library, was torn down. Choibalsan’s, which stands in front of the National University (which for a time bore his name), is still there. Attitudes towards Choibalsan varied in the 1990s. In the early 1990s, and even today, many people credited Choibalsan with keeping Mongolia independent when Stalin proposed to annex it after the Second World War. True or not, this story places Choibalsan in an ambivalent, if not positive, light. Some people in 161

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1993 did talk about his role in the purges, but also pointed out his role as a patriot.24 In a class of University students I talked to at the time, some went even further. They suggested that Choibalsan had been killed by the Soviets for his advocacy of Mongolian independence. To some then, Choibalsan was not only a patriot, but also a martyr. Whatever the current assessment of him, Choibalsan was seen as an important figure in Mongolian history – he was listed by more than a third of the people I questioned in 1993 as one of the five most important people in Mongolian history. One cannot tell from this fact whether he was deemed important in a good or bad sense, but conversations in 1993 seemed to suggest his role was more good than bad. The vast majority of other people listed were seen in a positive light. In 1997, the argument that the Soviets, and not the Mongolians, should bear the blame for the ills of the socialist period, was still present, and was used by some people to excuse Choibalsan’s role in the political repression. Thus, rather than saying Choibalsan was evil for his role in the repression, the 1993 view, the blame was shifted elsewhere – to the Soviet Union. A single sentence in an Englishlanguage newspaper in late 1997 sums up this prevailing attitude: ‘All acts of political repression were ordered by Russian KGB agents through the then leader and Soviet Puppet, H. Choibalsan’.25 Even the head of the Memorial Museum for the Victims of Political Repression blamed Stalin for the repression, although her opinion of Choibalsan was still critical. Choibalsan, in her opinion, had been appointed as a result of his fondness for drink, which made him a malleable puppet. She did, however, also deny him his alleged role in keeping Mongolia independent. This, she said, was the result of the ard tümen (people) rather than Choibalsan. Yet others were more openly critical, such as the former ambassador mentioned earlier. He also said that there was a movement to remove Choibalsan’s statue from in front of the National University, because people thought it was inappropriate to honour him. These opinions of Choibalsan are not simply reflections on a former Mongolian ruler. They reflect people’s attempts to come to terms with the repression and with the socialist past more generally. Those who would seek to absolve Choibalsan of ultimate guilt and moral responsibility are, I argue, seeking to exonerate Mongolians more generally. Those who assign guilt ultimately to the Soviets also seek to reject the negative legacy of socialism as the heritage of Mongolians. Others, however, in arguing that Choibalsan himself was ultimately responsible are also arguing that the full legacy of socialism belongs to the Mongolians. Even if this is the case, it does not answer why the shift in talking about the repression should occur when it did. What accounted then for this shift? Why did some people’s perception of Choibalsan appear to shift over the years? I link this change to the issue of de-communisation, which is important for understanding the dialogue about the repression more generally. Elsewhere in the Soviet bloc, de-communisation was carried out in the present through removal of political figures, the vetting of the judiciary, and so forth.26 Even if such procedures often proved ineffective in the end, at least they were attempted. In contrast, in Mongolia, 162

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de-communisation never really occurred in the present. Those who have not continued on in politics have retired to lead quiet lives. Rather de-communisation occurred through a re-remembering of the past. Let me return to the larger issues I raised earlier. Immediately after the collapse of socialism, the socialist past was itself largely ignored. When it was talked about, it was seen as a foreign imposition. Socialism was not Mongolian. In this atmosphere, although publications on the purges appeared, the purges did not occupy a large place in the public consciousness. When they did appear, they assumed two roles. On the one hand, individuals began to seek after relatives. On the other hand, the purges took on a political role, one that implicated them in the process of de-communisation. MAHN published writings on the purges in an attempt to distance itself from the excesses of the socialist period, and thus maintain a degree of legitimacy. Ts. Balhaajav, who was at the time the Secretary of the Central Committee offered a typical assessment in the World Marxist Review in 1989, before the collapse of the socialist regime. Today’s problems can not be viewed in isolation from the past. Most of the deformations we are talking about stem from Horloogiyn Choibalsan’s personality cult. Our party’s return to the question, and the present critical reappraisal of his successor, Yumjagiin Tsedenbal, are an imperative of socialist construction, not mere political expediency. … Choibalsan was a founder of the Mongolian People’s Party and a leader of the 1921 Revolution. But we have no reason to gloss over his subsequent errors. In the 1930s, he seriously breached the revolutionary law by repressing numerous party, government and economic personnel. The party and people sustained an irrevocable loss. Stalin’s cult also played a sinister role in this ruinous process: in Mongolia both leaders commanded equal worship.27 This passage highlights several of the themes I wish to point out here. Not only is it clear (despite Balhaajav’s protests) that the reassessment of Choibalsan was a political manoeuvre, but we can also see two other points. First is the inclusion of Stalin and by implication the Soviets, among the recipients of blame. Second is the placing of MAHN in the list of victims. This tactic dovetailed nicely with the rejection of the socialist past as a Soviet, and hence colonial, past advocated by some of the democratic protesters in 1990. Thus, in a section entitled ‘Lessons from history’ in the First Party Congress of the Mongolian Social Democratic Party (held on 31 March 1990), the repression of the 1930s was attributed to Stalin.28 The section paints most of the socialist past as resulting from the Soviets. The opposition parties by contrast sought to delegitimise MAHN by linking them to the Soviet Union, the very process MAHN was trying to avoid. It had wanted to portray itself as the defender of true Mongolian socialism, which had been corrupted by the Soviets. 163

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Later in the 1990s the democratic parties would make more conscious use of the repression as a weapon against MAHN. Although articles on the repression did appear in Ardchilal (Democracy), a newspaper of one of the democratic parties in the early 1990s, the democrats did not appear to hammer against MAHN as much as they would later in the decade. Part of the reason for this strategy may be the fact that democracy itself was seen as being relatively fragile. MAHN could distance itself from socialism and the democratic parties would not take issue with this, partly because they wanted to avoid endangering the process of democratisation.29 In essence, then, the desire to link MAHN with the Soviets by blaming the Soviets for the evils of socialism had a double advantage for the democrats. It helped to delegitimise MAHN but also preserved a degree of necessary harmony for the rebuilding of Mongolian society and politics by providing a convenient scapegoat. The recent shift, at least by some Mongolians, to seeing the repression as the work of the Mongolians suggests that the new Mongolia is ready to look more closely at the socialist past. Post-socialist Mongolia has a new identity, one built upon conceptions of what it means to be Mongolian through reference to the presocialist past. This is an identity that people can at least agree to disagree about. With this identity in place, more delicate problems of the past – such as the repression – can be and are now being broached. Only in 1996 did the government declare a day of remembrance for the victims, and only in the following year did government officials themselves take part ceremonies commemorating the repression. This caution was doubtless due in part to the fact that MAHN maintained a majority in the Ih Hural (parliament) until the 1996 elections, but it also overlaps with the coalescing of the new identity that offered a vantage point from which to raise these issues. Raising the issue of the repression was perhaps most apparent in the fall of 1997. In the autumn session of the Ih Hural, one of the laws being debated was over the rehabilitation of and the granting of compensation to victims of political repression. This same law included passages banning the advocating of political repression, or even supporting it. It also singled out MAHN as responsible for the previous repression. MAHN, understandably, took issue with this assessment. Calling the law a ‘one-sided conclusion’, they argued that it violated other Mongolian laws and threatened the principle of free speech. They also argued that MAHN was not the same party that had carried out the repression, and even MAHN had been victims, so how could they also have been the perpetrators?30 The response of the Union of the Victims of Political Purges to MAHN’s stance is typical of those that opposed MAHN’s claims: In a letter to MAHN members of the State Ih Hural, the Union attacked the Party’s statement to the Justice Standing Committee calling for revisions to the law on exonerating the victims of political purges. ‘This is a cunning move to conceal MAHN’s 70 years of crimes’, said the Union’s statement. ‘MAHN has proved that it is a dangerous political 164

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force by resisting the article prohibiting group purges and genocide or the support of such crimes. It has revealed its ambition to revive communism, appealing to the public against democracy. MAHN does not apologise for its past crimes. Rather it has been obstructing for a long time the exoneration of purge victims and has tried to prevent the forging of a law preventing future purges. It is not acting in the national interest.’31 Although there were other points of contention concerning the law (the amount of compensation, among others), MAHN’s stance generated the most controversy. Some went so far as to call for the confiscation of MAHN’s property on the grounds that it had profited from the repression. Others wanted MAHN taken to an international court. In other words, although wrapped in the language of concern for the victims of the repression, the statement is much more a political swipe aimed at MAHN. It is informative in this context to realise that the issue of the newspaper Ardchilal, published by the democratic parties, was largely focused on hammering MAHN. The repression was a key topic, but only to underline MAHN’s alleged guilt, and hence their moral forfeiture of political power. MAHN’s claim that it too was a victim brings up one more issue I wish to consider in this context. Simply put, MAHN’s claim raises the issue of the status of victims in Mongolia at present. It was suggested to me more than once while I was doing fieldwork in 1997 that it was currently ‘fashionable’ to be a victim of the repression. ‘Try to check to see if the people you talk to are really victims’, one friend told me. He went on to say that it was seen as ‘heroic’ to have been a victim of repression since it marked you as someone who had been against the regime. He also added that it was easy to know what to say to pass as a victim because there were so many newspaper articles on political repression these days. Others echoed this sentiment. There could well be a very pragmatic reason for such claims to victim status – victims of the repression and their relatives were being compensated, and some (at least three hundred) had received apartments.32 There were clearly material benefits to be had by being a victim. But there was, I think, another more important reason. Simply put, the status of victim confers on political views and agendas a certain moral authority. This belief is echoed in MAHN’s claim that it too was a victim. If it could not defend the actions of the government and Party during the 1930s, it could at least stake a claim that it too had suffered. Although a largely unsuccessful tactic, it does point out the perceived importance of the role of victim. The other issue in claims of victimhood is that they seem, in the current postsocialist political arena in Mongolia, to imply that others still bear the crime of repression. If one was not a victim (defined by links to the repressed), one must have been complicit in the regime. There is no room for grey areas in such categories. Thus even those who might have resisted the regime but were not repressed are grouped with the active supporters of the regime.33 165

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This dichotomy, of course, greatly misrepresents the actuality of socialism on several levels. First, it assumes that to fail to resist actively is to support actively. This simply was not the case. Further, it assigns to victims the status of resisters. While most victims were accused of resistance, they were not necessarily guilty of it. Many of the purged were killed for no other reason than being rich herders or Buddhist lamas. Although these social categories were seen as being in opposition to the socialist government, many individuals had done nothing at all to oppose the regime. In fact, it would be well to remember that several of the early revolutionaries were nobles and lamas themselves, and not all of them were subsequently purged.34 The reverse also holds true. Without meaning to diminish their suffering, it should be understood that some of the early leaders and revolutionaries, now seen as victims, took part in factional struggles that led to purges. For example, P. Genden, the Prime Minister who was killed in 1937, is now portrayed largely as an innocent victim. Many people hold that his arrest and subsequent execution ushered in the great terror of the late 1930s. Yet Dashpurev and Soni implicate Genden in organising an early purge, the Lhümbe affair.35 Baabar, on the other hand, thinks that, although Genden played an ‘important role’ in the affair, he did not initiate it.36 In short, the actual situation in Mongolia during the socialist period was more complex than is now sometimes portrayed. I have argued in this chapter that the current debates over the repression in Mongolia and how it is portrayed owe as much, if not more, to the current political situation and to the need to establish a uniquely Mongolian identity. It is well to remember that regimes of truth operate in both directions. Not only do the memories and experiences of the political repression shape the current political debate and discourse over the past in Mongolia, but, these dialogues also shape the memories and understandings of the repression themselves. The final outcome is still unclear. I do not want to end with the impression that remembering and talking about political repression in Mongolia is nothing more than manoeuvring for position in the current political arena, or an attempt to rethink the past in general terms. For many of the people I met, discussing the repression was simply a chance to talk about their relatives, and their own memories of the purges. For the men and women who remember their uncles and fathers being taken away in the night, the chance to recall those events openly is a chance to ensure that their relatives exist in a way more meaningful than a palm-sized scrap of paper exonerating them. Yet, as I have tried to demonstrate in the course of this chapter, the larger issues of political necessity and the constructing of regimes of truth cannot be ignored in this context. Even if people thought they were simply telling me a story, at another level, they were being influenced by and in turn influencing larger debates on political repression and current political manoeuvrings. These are the issues that have done as much as, if not more than, the memories of the relatives of the repressed to shape the discourse about political repression in Mongolia. 166

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Acknowledgements I would like to thank T. Undarya for her comments on a previous version of this chapter. Research for this article was supported by a grant from the International Exchange and Research Board (IREX), with funds provided by the Henry Luce Foundation. None of these organisations is responsible for the views expressed.

Notes 1 Although internal exile did take place in Mongolia, many of those sentenced to the Gulag were sent to the Soviet Union. Prison labour camps did exist in Mongolia as well. 2 D. Dashpurev and S. K. Soni, Reign of Terror in Mongolia, 1920–1990 (New Delhi: South Asian Publishers, 1992), p. 63. It is widely rumoured that the murder of the politician Zorig in the fall of 1998 was politically motivated. Even if this is the case, it is of a different sort than the killings carried out under the direction of the government or Party. 3 Other sources say 30,000, and some have said the numbers could be as high as 100,000. For the latter, see Dashpurev and Soni, Reign of Terror in Mongolia, pp. 42–4. This higher figure, however, is based on a calculation of ‘missing’ persons and appears to include including lamas who left the monasteries, but were not killed. 4 MAHN, the socialist party also known as the Mongolian People’s Revolutionary Party (MPRP), ruled Mongolia for seventy years. It was in opposition in the Ih Hural (Parliament), from 1996 to 2000, but returned to power with an overwhelming majority in 2000. 5 Ingrid de Kok, ‘Cracked Heirlooms: Memory on Exhibition’, in Sarah Nuttall and Carli Coetzee, eds, Negotiating the Past: The Making of Memory in South Africa (Capetown: Oxford University Press, 1998), p. 61. 6 Ibid. 7 The expression ‘unjustly repressed’ is a distinction made in official Mongolian documents, although not usually in conversation or other writings. At one level it implies that it was possible to be justly repressed, although I am not aware of most people making a point of this. One young man I talked to did assume most of the repressed must have been guilty, but he was a distinct minority voice. It may, of course, also be simply a means to intensify the condemnation (thanks to Robert Cribb for this observation). 8 Michel Foucault, Power/knowledge: Selected Interviews and Other Writings 1972–1977 (New York: Pantheon Books, 1980), p. 133. 9 Prior to the 1950s, the socialist hold on power appears to me to have been more tenuous than is usually supposed. See Christopher Kaplonski, ‘Idly Drinking and Talking: The Sovietisation of the Mongolian Countryside’, paper presented at the American Anthropological Association Annual Meetings, Philadelphia, 1998. 10 The regulation originally required reporting only one generation back, but was changed when the children of the repressed began to have children. It was suggested to me that if socialism had continued much longer, yet another generation would have been added to the list. 11 Urgunge Onon, trans. and ed., Mongolian Heroes of the Twentieth Century (New York: AMS Press, 1976), p. 214. 12 Rather suggestively in the present context, one person suggested to me that Tömör-Ochir had been repressed in part for calling attention to the issue of political repression. For one summary of the affair, see Paul Hyer, ‘The Re-evaluation of Chinggis Khan: Its Role in the Sino-Soviet Dispute’, Asian Survey, 6(12) (1966), 696–705.

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13 S. Pürevjav and D. Dashjamts, BNMAU-d süm hiid, lam naryn asuudlyg shiidverlesen n’ 1921–1940 (Ulaanbaatar: State Publishing Cooperative, 1965). 14 Ibid., p. 238. 15 These particular examples are from B. Dorj, ‘Huul’ bol huul’’ Mönh tengeriin hüchin dor (1992). Numerous books and pamphlets containing these and similar sayings were published in the early 1990s. 16 For one example, see Ch. Av’yasüren and H. Nyambuu, eds, Mongol yos zanshlyn ih tailbar tol’ (Ulaanbaatar: ‘Süülenhüü’ Children’s Publishing House, 1992). 17 Book production also apparently dropped off drastically throughout the 1990s. Thus, although there were books on the repression and socialist history more generally, numerically I do not think they matched the earlier emphasis on pre-socialist history. 18 Baabar, Twentieth Century Mongolia, D. Sühjargalmaa, et al., trans., C. Kaplonski, ed. (Cambridge: White Horse Press, 1999), p. 354. 19 Mongolians usually use one name and an initial. The initial refers to their ovog, similar to a patronymic, based on their father’s or sometimes mother’s name. Choibalsan was Horloogiin Choibalsan, but this version of his name is almost never used. 20 Some sources say he went to Hüree in 1910; see D. Hatanbaatar, Yerönhii saidyn örgöönd (Ulaanbaatar: Shuvuun Saral, 1992), p. 80. 21 Baabar, Twentieth Century Mongolia, pp. 350ff. 22 Ibid., p. 351. 23 Ulsyn Töv Tüühiin Arhiv, F-1; T-5; H/N-325, pp. 11–12. 24 In his recent book on Mongolian nationalism, Bulag comments that ‘Choibalsan is now regarded as a patriot’; see Uradyn Bulag, Nationalism and Hybridity in Mongolia (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), p. 46, n. 14; p. 92, n. 15. 25 Ch. Baatarbeel, ‘New Memorial a Tribute to Politically Repressed’, Mongol Messenger, 17 December 1997, p. 12. 26 John Borneman, Settling Accounts: Violence, Justice, and Accountability in Postsocialist Europe (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1997). 27 Ts. Balhaajav, ‘The Aim is Spiritual Renewal’, World Marxist Review, 32(7), 52. 28 P. Ulaanhüü (comp.), Mongolyn sotsial-demokrat namyn anhdugaar ih hural (Ulaanbaatar: Mongolian Social Democratic Party, 1990), pp. 10–11. It should be noted that the passage in question was written by Baabar. 29 I am indebted to T. Undarya for this observation. 30 For a fuller account of this entire issue, see Christopher Kaplonski, ‘Blame, Guilt and Avoidance: The Struggle to Control the Past in Post-socialist Mongolia’ History and Memory, 11(2) (1999), pp. 94–114. 31 ‘MPRP taken to task on purge record’, UB Post, 2 December 1997, p. 2. In the body of the text, I have taken the liberty of changing MPRP to MAHN for the sake of consistency. 32 D. Narantuya, ‘Locals Mark National Day of Political Repression’, The Mongol Messenger, 17 September 1997, p. 8. 33 For at least the 1950s, the period of collectivisation, and currently the only one I have done archival research on, it is clear that the government and its agents saw extensive non-compliance and everyday forms of resistance in the actions of the herders and others. See James Scott, Weapons of the Weak: Everyday Forms of Peasant Resistance (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1985). 34 One famous figure, Hatanbaatar Magsarjav, for example, retained his status as revolutionary hero despite having been a noble. For a socialist era biography of him, see Onon, Mongolian Heroes of the Twentieth Century. 35 Dashpurev and Soni, Reign of Terror in Mongolia, p. 29. 36 Baabar, Twentieth Century Mongolia, p. 332.

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10 COPING WITH THE CIVIL WAR OF 1918 IN TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY FINLAND Risto Alapuro

The War The Finnish Civil War in the winter and spring of 1918 brought working people led by the Social Democrats into armed conflict with upper and middle classes and especially the freeholding peasantry, which was the main force behind the bourgeois government.1 During the encounter and immediately after the revolutionaries’ defeat in April about 6,500 people were killed in battle, and 1,600 and 8,400 were executed in the Red and the White terror, respectively. In the summer and autumn 12,500 more Reds died in the prison camps, in which the White victors incarcerated about 82,000 people – in a country of 3.1 million people.2 The War followed the recognition of the independence of Finland by the Bolsheviks in December 1917, more than a century after Finland had become a grand duchy in the Russian empire. The outbreak was tied to the February and October revolutions in Russia, and, more generally, to dislocations in the empire that were brought about by the First World War. A (small) number of Russians fought on the Red side, and German troops landed on the southern coast to support the Whites. Yet, on both sides, the overwhelming majority of contestants were Finns.3 On the one hand, the encounter divided the population clearly along class lines – it has even been called “perhaps Europe’s most clear-cut class war in the twentieth century”4 – and on the other, it was intertwined with Finland’s breaking away from Russia and the gaining of Finnish independence. Thus it was fought on the one hand in the dimension of class, and on the other in the dimension of the nation. The two dimensions became indistinguishable, as the founding of the Finnish nation became marked by an extremely sharp internal division and a bloody aftermath that even exceeded the contemporaneous White terror in Hungary.5 This paradoxical pattern, a deep division at the moment unity was to be established, provides the starting point for assessing the legacy of the Civil War in twenty-first-century Finland. The event was (or is) symbolically extremely rich 169

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in expressing major tensions in the Finnish society or, perhaps more to the point, its aspects are so rich and dense that it was (and still is being) put to many different symbolic uses when these tensions were (and still are being) worked and reworked.

A contingent event, not the last stage in a long-term polarization Why did the Civil War or an attempt at revolution break out in Finland? It was one of the so-called successor states that at the end of the First World War severed their connections with the mother empires, as did the regions of the Hungarians, the Poles or the Estonians. However, unlike all of them, Finland had a Scandinavian social structure and Scandinavian institutions – which arguably have been favorable for democratic development. These features went back to the pre-Russian period when Finland constituted a number of mainly Finnish-speaking counties in the Kingdom of Sweden. Besides, in 1906, universal and equal suffrage for both men and women and a unicameral assembly were established, and a party system quite similar to that in other Scandinavian countries emerged. Why and how did the dissolution of the Russian empire launch a civil war in Finland, even though a liberal-democratic political system had been established there (with limitations dictated by Russian supremacy), and the workers’ movement had an active role in the political system? In order to be able to assess the repercussions of the War in later Finnish history, we have to try to relate it to the preceding developments. Only by including its historical background into our perspective, can we have a proper idea of its political and cultural ramifications. The revolutionary outbreak in Finland was, as so many other revolutions, a “contingent [event] with no particular connection to the ideal-typical developmental path”.6 It was no last stage in a long-term polarization.7 The process was shaped by the particular way in which the two Russian revolutions of 1917 interacted with the Finnish political system, in which the basically Scandinavian type of Social Democrats had a central role. In 1916 the Social Democrats had gained the majority – 103 seats out of 200 – in Parliament, and after the February revolution in Russia they formed a government in coalition with bourgeois parties, taking the post of the prime minister. Another, more ominous, repercussion of the February revolution in Finland was the disappearance of the established means of coercion. The “Russified” police, organized to comply with imperial policy, were widely forced to resign; no domestic troops existed after their dissolution in the beginning of the century; and the Russian troops stationed in the country were largely paralyzed. Now the maintenance of order was, in the last analysis, in the hands of those groups that themselves were contenders in the political struggle. A critical step toward the encounter was taken when the Social Democrats were removed from political power in July 1917 in a manner whose legality they always questioned. Parliament was dissolved through a conflict between the Finnish government and the Russian Provisional Government in cooperation with Finnish 170

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bourgeois groups, and in the subsequent elections the Social Democrats lost their majority. At the same time, armed organizations, civil guards, were increasingly set up on the bourgeois side. Then, especially after defeat in the elections, workers’ security guards were organized, and in November a general strike was declared. At the end of January 1918 the bourgeois government, after a proclamation of independence and its recognition by the Bolsheviks in December, declared that the civil guards were government troops and ordered the disarming of the workers’ guards, now generally called “Red guards”, the Social Democrats launched a “defensive” revolution.

A reservoir of interpretations Even though there were no profound long-term trends behind the Civil War, its effects on the Finnish society were of long duration. It came to imbue conceptions of the Finnish nation and the classes in Finland, of the national unity and the conflict up to the 1960s and the 1970s and even later. Most important, in the process of gaining national independence it so happened that the contrast between “national” and “not national” came to be forcefully accompanied by the contrast between what was Finland’s “own” and what was “alien,” between what was “inside” and “outside” within Finland. In fact, this contrast has been a sensitive theme throughout modern Finnish history: it marks the country’s economic, political and cultural consolidation in the Russian empire during the nineteenth century. But the Civil War in 1918 crystallized the contrast and heightened its effects to overpowering proportions in the non-socialist part of the population. Significant for later interpretations of the nature of war was the fact that, given its background, the event remained nearly totally incomprehensible to the intelligentsia. The solidarity of the people with the “national” educated class had constituted a basic tenet in the national(ist) ideology, and no emergence of a revolutionary party had preceded the attempted revolution. Consequently the intellectuals were very poorly prepared to comprehend the awesome challenge and even tended to feel that it was insulting. It is understandable, then, that an interpretation evolved which explained the seemingly inconceivable revolt of a part of the people “against itself ” by projecting the cause of revolution outside the nation – to the Russians of course, but also to the Finnish Reds “infected” or “misled” by the Russians to betray their own country: the rebels had separated themselves from their compatriots and put themselves in the service of their mortal enemies. It was as if at the final moment of the fulfillment of the national aspirations, some Finns had conspired with the Russians to undo the newlygained independence, and thus abandoned their own nation. This meant that in the founding event of the independent statehood that which was “alien” appeared to have penetrated and infected that which was Finnish. Therefore, for the victors the War became a struggle for the survival of the nation – whereas for the defeated it was a social struggle. The most eloquent 171

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indication of the highly charged ambiguity in the character of the War is that it did not acquire, and still does not have, a commonly shared name. During and immediately after the encounter three terms appeared. It was a “civil war” (kansalaissota)8 above all for the defeated, especially for the Social Democrats. Communists (whose party was founded in 1918) and left-wing socialists called it a “class war” (luokkasota). For the victors it established itself as a “war for freedom” (vapaussota), implying that it had primarily been a struggle for the liberation of Finland from Russian imperialism, which took the form of Bolshevism after the autumn of 1917. For the prevailing culture the legacy of the Civil War involved, then, three interrelated and extremely sensitive aspects. First, Finland, which was an “unhistoric” nation in the sense that it was not linked to any historically remembered (“Finnish”) polity, had gained independence as a by-product of the World War, and consequently its national identity was far from being established. Second, the fragility was exacerbated by an internal war that resulted in the exclusion of a major part of the population from the nation as being “not national” or as “those who had no fatherland”; and, third, a socialist giant power intimately linked to those “without a fatherland” began to consolidate itself on the other side of the border. From this configuration an extremely charged issue emerged that never lost its significance for the Finnish identity as long the Soviet Union existed. It could be called the problem of the fifth column, and it crystallized itself especially in the form of the Communists. For the victorious Whites the most painful aspect of the legacy of the Civil War expressed itself through their mass support: it was a deeply felt insecurity about national survival and, as its source, the tendency to equate the enemy outside (the Soviet Union) and many of the people inside the country (the Finnish Communists and those considered to be Communists). The problem of the internal conflict was enormously heightened by its perceived external linkages; these were bound to make the problem appear, at least in certain periods, to be a question of life or death for the whole country. Hence the most serious political or politico-cultural issue in Finland during the past “Bolshevik century”9 was how to reintegrate the communists, or, more generally, how to restore national unity, in conditions in which the internal and the external determinants of integrity could not be wholly distinguished from each other. All this does not mean that the Civil War itself or even the communists continually dominated the political discussion after 1918. It rather means that the War crystallized a certain framework or a series of coordinates for perceptions of unity and disunity, of loyalty and disloyalty, of a need for conformity and a tolerance for plurality, etc. It profoundly modified and reinforced linkages between the inside and the outside, which had emerged in the nineteenth century vis-à-vis the mother empire. It provided a kind of underlying system of significations, or a code, which exceeded the Civil War itself and was available when views of solidarity were discussed and defined. 172

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Exclusion and inclusion in the interwar period A definite result of the War among the defeated was indeed the establishment of considerable support for the Communists. In the 1920s Communists and left-wing socialists succeeded in maintaining, despite harassment, a presence in Parliament under various labels (they gained from 18 to 27 seats out of 200), but at the beginning of the 1930s they met with the most radical attempt at eliminating them. Then the post-revolutionary quest for national integration climaxed in the form of the so-called Lapua movement, the Finnish variant of fascism. It gained a real foothold during the Great Depression, as did corresponding movements in many other European countries, and nearly dominated the country in 1930. The movement was able to have all public activities by Communists – understood in a very diffuse sense – banned, and after crushing the Communists, it attacked the Social Democrats. Its significance lies not only in its strength but also in its character. Rather than a political party or a distinct movement with strong leadership (as fascist movements in many countries used to be), it was a general bourgeois reaction – a loosely organized pressure group or faction within several parties, notably in the conservative Coalition party but to a considerable degree in the political center as well. Precisely, the importance of the restoration of the national integrity explains the wide echo the Lapua movement found in the nonsocialist camp. It was a reaction to continue the “War for Freedom” against the Communists, Social Democrats and even the Russians, and its rhetoric repeated the most extreme images of 1918 White propaganda.10 Although at times a seizure of power was not out of the question, the movement ultimately failed and in 1932, after an attempted coup d’état, it was dissolved. A more conciliatory line to recover national integrity came to prevail, particularly in the late 1930s. In the reconciliatory view, the repressive policy, if extended to those other than the Communists, would be counterproductive. Instead of bringing cohesion, it would only widen the social cleavage, thus weakening prospects of national survival. The argument had been expressed graphically already in 1918 in a manual of the civic guards (the military organization of the victors): “The wounds of the Civil War must be healed. Cost what it may and as soon as possible, we have to bring about a situation in which – if our country is threatened – every Finnish man wants, knows and is able to avert the danger”.11 That is, instead of exclusion, the aim should be inclusion – a certain reconciliation with the Social Democrats who constituted the largest party in Parliament through the 1920s and the 1930s. The opposition of the Right notwithstanding, the centrist Agrarian Union began in 1937 a governmental cooperation with the Social Democrats, and the coalition lasted up to the War (and of course during it as well). This was an important step in releasing the Social Democrats from second-class citizenship, even though suspicion toward them and also their social discrimination persisted in many ways.12

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However, the perceived fusion of the external and the internal threat was not the only factor behind the conciliatory line. Underlying the catastrophe of the Civil War were the Scandinavian social structure and its political institutionalization. Crucial in placing constraints on the repressive exclusion of working people was the solid position of the independent peasantry and their party in the state and society. The exclusion of the Social Democrats would have unbalanced the political system to the advantage of the Right, a development that was unacceptable to the Agrarians and the other centrists. In fact, to a very large extent both the rise and the fall of the Lapua movement was determined by the peasantry. This is well indicated by the failure of the movement’s leadership to mobilize the peasant rank and file behind the coup d’état in 1932. In other words, ultimately, thanks to the Scandinavian structures and institutions, fascist intrusions remained limited in Finland despite the attempt at revolution in 1918. Even the trauma of the Civil War, combined with the proximity of the consolidating Soviet state, could not perpetuate the exclusion of the working class. In the late 1930s Finland acquired a center–left coalition, thereby following, albeit in a modest form, the example of the other Scandinavian countries.13 As a result, Finland on the eve of the Second World War differed both from its Western neighbors and from the other successor states of previous empires. In Finland, democracy was curtailed by banning the Communists, and the quest for a rigorous patriotic unity or a uniform Gemeinschaft solidarity persisted to an extent unknown in the other Scandinavian countries, which had not experienced a revolutionary attempt and did not have the Soviet Union as their neighbor. At the same time ideological uniformity was less constraining in Finland than in the Baltic countries, for example, which had also faced an attempt at revolution and banned the Communists and which also lived in the shadow of the USSR, but in which strong landed elite and labor-repressive agrarian systems had predominated and the peasant parties were less autonomous than the Agrarian Union in Finland. While Finland arrived in the 1930s at a peasant–worker coalition, these countries arrived at authoritarian systems.14 In the educated class the trend in part differed from the one in national politics, especially among the young intellectuals. In the 1920s the activists in the predominant student movement, the Academic Karelia Society (Akateeminen Karjala-Seura or AKS) wanted to “wash away the bad dream” of 1918 and even sought for connections with the Social Democrats. This phase was transient, however, and the reconciliatory line increasingly lost ground among them in the late 1920s. Then, in the wake of the Lapua movement and with Hitler’s rise to power fascist ideas started to attract a considerable part of the (young) educated middle class. Inspired by the movement they saw that it was possible to restore solidarity with the people both in looking for support from “patriotic” peasants and in declaring their willingness to save the workers from a “Marxism” that seemed “alien” and to “reclaim [them] for the fatherland”.15 In other words, when the reconciliation gained ground in national politics in the 1930s, the young educated class turned away from it. Its members were active 174

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in the new party, the People’s Patriotic Movement (Isänmaallinen kansanliike or IKL), which was founded in 1933 to continue the work of the Lapua movement after its dissolution. The party had a strong academic hue in its upper echelons, and the activists of the AKS closely followed its line. In academic research, not only the Civil War but social conflicts in general were almost completely ignored; the only field in which they were taken up and analyzed was literature. When the War was discussed by the academic community, it was normally considered as a regrettable but by no means fatal disturbance in the gradual unfolding of the nation. In a well-known and representative collection of round-table discussions of Finnish culture (Pidot Tornissa, 1937) a group of mainly centrist humanists and social scientists reflected extensively upon the cultural crisis that they felt was haunting Finnish society, but had practically nothing to say about the Civil War or its possible repercussions. Two prominent university intellectuals stated explicitly that the War was only a minor incident, an “episode,” whose permanent consideration was of no value. By the Second World War the academic culture was significantly incapable of analyzing the conflict.

Inclusion in the post-Second World War decades After the Second World War the problem of integration as a fusion of the internal and the external threat presented itself in a new form. In 1944, as a result of the armistice with the Soviet Union, the Communists emerged from the underground and in the first postwar elections gained one-fourth of the vote; about ten years later they became momentarily the largest party16 in Parliament. Among the postwar Western European countries only Italy and France equaled Finland in this respect. The class conflict, particularly the opposition between the Communists and all the others, was the most salient cleavage in Finnish society.17 Simultaneously, the USSR gained influence in the country; a delicate relationship emerged which was formalized in the Finnish–Soviet Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual Assistance in 1948. In other words, when the former politics of exclusion had become inconceivable for external reasons, the “fifth column” (re-)entered public life forcefully. What remained available in coming to terms with them was the model the center had adopted in the 1920s and the 1930s vis-à-vis the Social Democrats: integration through toleration and cooperation. The co-optation did not occur in the 1940s or in the 1950s, however. Then anticommunism in the rest of the society was as fierce as ever, reinforced by fear of the Soviet Union. The conciliatory line gained momentum only in the 1960s, and then as a part of a cultural and socio-economic transformation which was accompanied by a cooperative line vis-à-vis the Soviet Union as well. A major part of the internal reconciliation can be seen as another reaction to the problem of survival or to the perceived necessity of reconciliation. It involved both a quest for integrity and an awareness that in order to attain internal cohesion a degree of plurality had to be allowed. At the same time, a minimal 175

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coming-to-terms with the Communists appeared necessary for foreign policy reasons as well: cooperative relations with the Soviets could not be antagonized by an utter discrimination of Communists in Finland. This attitude, involving a certain kind of internally structured self-control, in fact continues a long-term line in coping with the Russians. In the nineteenth century the national margin of maneuvering was largely considered to be best maintained or even enhanced through a kind of reconciliatory “realism” – by anticipating what were the situations the Russians would consider critical or unacceptable in their relations with the Finns and, thereby, avoiding them in advance. This two-front policy – the integration of Communists in Finland, and the anticipation and reconciliation vis-à-vis Russia – was personified in Urho Kekkonen, President of Finland from 1956 to 1981. A student activist in the 1920s, he had been one of those who wanted to wash away the bad dream of the Reds and the Whites, and in the 1930s he was an Agrarian Union politician cooperating with the Social Democrats. In the 1960s Kekkonen was active in extending integration to the Communists, and in relations with the Soviets he made concessions with the aim of defending the basic interests of the country (a policy that gave the notion of “Finlandization” to the Western political vocabulary). The rapid modernization in the 1960s undoubtedly contributed to increasing tolerance vis-à-vis the Communists. The social change was more sudden and thorough than in practically any other Western European country: the number of farmers decreased, the agrarian workers nearly disappeared, people moved en masse to the towns (and to Sweden), and the standard of living rose. Culture became more permissive, the norms more flexible. A new liberalism endorsed the recognition of the rights of the individual, including the rights of prisoners and the homeless and the acceptance of pacifism and equal rights for women. A conception of the nation developed into which different views could be incorporated and conflicts seen as a positive force. In proclaiming tolerance of differences and disagreements the liberalism of the 1960s was consciously opposed to national patriotism. As a part of this reorientation it became possible, for the first time, to embrace the Communists within the nation. The social sciences played a pronounced role in the process. The inclusion of Communists was gradually seen to be “reasonable” in a pluralist society. Social scientists provided “scientific,” rational arguments for their acceptance: if the Communists were treated in the same way as the others, they would accept the legitimacy of the Finnish sociopolitical system. In other words, the Communists began to be increasingly seen as on a par with other Finns. However, significantly enough, the importance of national cohesion underlies even this pluralism and increase in tolerance. Liberalization was furthered to a large extent with the ultimate objective of national consensus in mind. This argument was used especially in the political sphere. It has even been argued that pluralism became a kind of norm: everybody had to be tolerant and liberal.18 Not surprisingly, as an aspect of the erosion of the framework established by 1918 the War itself became, for the first time, the object of serious reassessment. 176

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For decades the academic community and the bourgeois opinion more generally had been incapable of coping with the encounter. A new phase in the process began, however, when in 1960 Väinö Linna published a major work set in the year 1918.19 In the second volume of Linna’s great trilogy Täällä Pohjantähden alla (“Here Underneath the North Star”) the conflict is crystallized in the vicissitudes of a crofter’s son, who was an active member of the local workers’ association, a Red Guard leader, and finally one of the tens of thousands of prisoners in White camps. The book opened, so to say, more locked doors than any other work. It showed the entire bourgeois readership how the insurgent side could also be seen as a part of the nation. In presenting the revolutionaries not as misled or misbehaving but as sensible and responsible people acting reasonably in their own interest, it legitimized them as Finns and, as it were, gave them back their rights of citizenship. Linna effectively participated in the dismantling of the trauma and showed the educated class how to find a new way of reaching the “people”: although the people had rebelled, they had also striven for the nation’s best interests. Linna’s novel had an enormous echo, and it effectively contributed to a reconciliation between the intellectual culture and the collective memory of the workers. It soon established itself as the “national” novel of the twentieth century. In the integration process the attitude of the communists themselves was of no minor significance. An erosion took place in the communist identity that had separated them from all others. The social transformation of the 1960s certainly contributed to this. It destroyed earlier group relations and bonds of solidarity among the working people and thereby made it more difficult than before to transfer the legacy of ressentiment to the next generation. But the former antagonism was weakening in the political arena as well; the development matched with the bourgeois willingness to consider cooperation with the Communists. In 1966 the majority wing of the party, increasingly under the leadership of a post-Second World War generation, entered a coalition government with the Center and the Social Democrats and remained in it, nearly without interruptions, until 1983. This evolution also says something of the weak social-structural base of Finnish Communism. Its large backing does not fit in the scheme that distinguishes the Social Democratic northern Europe from southern Europe, where the Communist parties have had substantial support, not only in Italy and France, but also in Portugal and Spain.20 These Catholic countries experienced fascism much more painfully than Finland ever did, and the position of the upper class in these countries has been much more powerful than in agrarian Finland. The legacy of the Civil War, even linked to the fear of the Soviet Union, could not be maintained interminably. In the 1960s Finland began to return culturally and politically to that Scandinavian mainstream of which it has always been a part in terms of social and administrative structures. A major element of the political and cultural transformation of the 1960s was the radical student movement, exactly as in other European countries and the United States. Noteworthy in the Finnish case is how it was shaped by the context 177

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which was marked by a strong Communist party and ultimately by the Civil War. In Finland, the movement broke the nearly total anticommunism of the educated class. Students and other young intellectuals discovered the worker movement – not only the Social Democrats but also the Communists and left-wing socialists. When the educated class finally encountered the worker movement, the atmosphere was electric. For an appreciable number of young intellectuals, the discovery of the people in the guise of the working class was a genuine revelation. It was as if a part of the hidden history of the country had been brought from the dark out into the open. A renaissance of the working class culture ensued and led many intellectuals to the Communist party and particularly to its hard-line minority, which opposed the party’s pro-government majority. For a time in the early 1970s this line controlled the strongest student organization in Finland – apparently a unique phenomenon among the student movements of the epoch. A reason seems to lie, as curious as it may sound, in the wholeheartedly pro-Soviet stand of the Communist minority. Given the close linkage between the internal and the external in the Finnish class conflict, it was inevitable that in discovering the Communist worker movement, the student activists discovered the Soviet Union as well. The movement took an unreservedly favorable view of the USSR, leaving little room for Maoist or Trotskist tendencies and bringing to an extreme but curiously logical end the unlocking of the trauma that by the 1960s had not been subject to academic analysis. In idealizing the Soviet system and, for example, Otto Wille Kuusinen, a leading figure of the Red Finland in 1918 and later a prominent Soviet leader, the students obliterated the boundary between the inside and the outside from direction opposite to the one their parents’ generation had taken. They not only included the Finnish Communists in the nation but in a sense even brought the feared “alien” from the outside to the inside. Yet, both student generations reacted, in their own ways, to the situation created by the Civil War. In 1918 the “people,” who were supposed to share the aspirations of the “national” educated class and to be loyal to it, seemed to have planted a knife in its back. In trying to resolve this problem, the young intellectuals attempted in the 1930s to re-establish the lost connection by hoping, in vain, to reclaim the “Marxist” working class for the fatherland. In the 1970s the connection was sought for by going to the other extreme: an unconditional identification with the most uncompromising form of the domestic working-class “Marxism,” including the most provocative conclusion of this identification, a resolute engagement to the Soviet cause.

Support for the Communists as a legacy of the Civil War At this point one may ask, whether the single-factor explanation for the support of Communism in Finland is also a simple-minded explanation. Erik Allardt, the most distinguished student of Finnish Communism, very clearly maintains 178

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that the repercussions of the Civil War are only one explanatory factor among many: Finland has often been compared with France, Italy and Ireland where the Communists have also had strong support. However, the strength of the Communists cannot be explained in terms of one single factor, such as the memory of 1918. Finland’s geographical position, the way the Second World War ended for Finland, the social problems of the countryside, social injustices and, no doubt, also the memory of the past class conflicts, such as the civil war of 1918, have all played a contributory role.21 There is absolutely no doubt that structured social injustices and rural poverty played a crucial role, as is shown by the social bases of “industrial Communism” and “backwoods Communism” identified by Allardt in the 1950s and the 1960s, as well as by the low income level and the widespread experience of unemployment among Communist voters.22 Yet I think that in order to understand the Finnish peculiarity in the Communist support, one should look at the country’s historically specific experience. What is important is that when poor people, including those in the weakest position, expressed their grievances at the ballot box, they had, in the Finnish postwar culture, Communism as an available alternative in a way that never was true in most Western European countries and certainly not in the socio-structurally comparable Scandinavian countries. In order to understand this setting, one has to invoke the historical framework in which voting for the Communists and their adversaries took place in Finland. In fact, all the “non-sociostructural” factors Allardt lists above, namely “the memory of 1918,” “Finland’s geographical position,” and “the way the Second World War ended for Finland,” fall into this framework. In common with all of them is the stress on the long-term effects of the Finnish–Russian relationships on the support for Communists. As I see it, the legacy of the Civil War is the crucial factor, but it must be placed in a broader perspective; and the long-run perspective includes a tradition of redefining relations between Finns in part through relations between Finns and Russians. This practice existed before 1918, and it reappeared in the post-Second World War period at many levels. The War of 1918 and the legitimacy and survival problems actualized by it are only the most spectacular manifestation of this connection. It was above all the Civil War that shaped the way the connection was conceived both among Communists and non-Communists. In this context the role of the Second World War in the support for Finnish Communism can be understood. The result – Finland’s defeat after an alliance (or “co-belligerence”) with Nazi Germany in a way that made it possible to preserve its independence but put it into the sphere of influence of the USSR – was a relief to many Finns who had lived as second-class citizens in their own country and were now able to triumphantly return to public life. It is in no way surprising that to these people the victorious Soviet Union appeared a hero and an ideal. The 179

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point is that this reaction cannot be understood without the Civil War experience and its ramifications in Finnish society in the 1920s and the 1930s. In short, the “really existing” presence or the availability of Communism was, in the extremely charged Finnish conditions, an option that never existed for workers in the rest of Scandinavia. One may recall that Allardt’s observations in fact posit a partial direct link between the Civil War and the Communist vote, in the case of the industrial Communism. Among its major background factors are strong political traditions measured, among other variables, by the number of Reds killed in 1918.23 A direct connection between the Civil War experience and the Communist vote has also been established in some local studies.24

The legacy of the Civil War in the post-Soviet period Today the double configuration that marked Finland since 1918 has disappeared. Within the country the conflict progressively eroded in the 1970s, the decade that coined the term “consensus” as the keyword of Finnish politics. The return to the Scandinavian course was completed through suicidal internal strife in the Communist movement, followed by its dissolution as a political party at the end of the 1980s. The party’s successor, the Left Union, has broken with the Communist ideology, even though many former Communists are active in it. Then the Soviet Union disintegrated, completing the decline of the tension that goes back to the beginning of the “Bolshevik century”. Apparently the blow to the left–radical discourse was exceptionally hard in Finland. There the intellectual tradition was less established than in France or Italy, and popular support for Communists was more difficult to reproduce after the exhaustion of the legacy of the Civil War. An entire language of social criticism has been, for the moment at least, compromised to a curiously high degree. An eloquent indication of the nature of the present ideological and political oppositions and at the same time of the significance of the end of the “Bolshevik century” in Finland is that since 1995 the Social Democrats have joined with both the bourgeois National Coalition party and the Left Union, that is, the two parties whose history most definitely goes back to antagonism produced by the Civil War, in forming a coalition government. One could presume that the year of 1918 has thus lost its relevance as a subject of discussion and debate as well. This is not at all true. In fact the end of the “Bolshevik century” has multiplied the perspectives to it, and the scholarly discussion has resumed after a somewhat less lively period in the late 1970s and the early 1980s. On the one hand, the fall of the Soviet Union has inspired a critical reassessment of the past decades. It has brought about criticism of the period of “Finlandization,” seen as involving servility to the Soviets, and a partial resurgence of those anticommunist views expressed during the 1930s to the 1950s, which were subsequently kept out of public discussion. In this reassessment the Civil War has been revived as the “War for Freedom” with a greater determination than in the intervening decades, but simultaneously also with 180

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a greater understanding to the revolutionaries’ motives than in the interwar period and the 1950s. On the other hand, the elucidation of the White terror has been brought further from the point reached in the 1960s and the 1970s. In his monumental work, The Road to Tampere (1993), Heikki Ylikangas draws a realistic picture, full of details, of the large-scale operation against the Red Tampere and the final crushing of its defenders. The book provoked a debate nearly equal to those in the 1960s. A remarkable number of other studies, movies and even novels have joined the examination, with varying emphases.25 In most of them the violence, often on both sides, appears more palpable and more naked than has been customary in earlier accounts, or they convey personal experiences and memories. Undoubtedly, a context which puts the Finnish Civil War in a new perspective and adds a new dimension to it, are the civil wars of present-day Europe, waged in the ruins of the disintegrated Soviet bloc. Finally, a gigantic project was launched in 1998 that aims to identify as many as possible of the about 40,000 Finns killed in violent conflicts between the beginning of the World War in 1914 and the end of the Finnish participation in the War in Soviet Russia in 1922. The overwhelming majority, 35,000–37,000 of those who met their death, were victims of the Civil War and its aftermath. In this project the motivation is conciliatory, shown by the central role of the Finnish government in its financing. In that same year, 1998, it happened, for the first time, that representatives of all parties assisted at a celebration in memory of the Red victims at the site of a postwar prisoner camp.26 It is as if the Finnish Civil War had passed from the realm of memory to the realm of history.27 Finnish youth in the 1990s have nearly no family memories of the events of 1918–28. Yet, as today’s Europe well shows, what seems to have passed to history may return to the realm of memory. All that is needed is a new or an old–new configuration for whose representation the past encounter can be invoked. The Finnish Civil War is a good example of the contradictions that small and dependent polities may face, when major crises in them must be incorporated in their own traditions. In both big and small countries reasserting identity is needed to place domestic upheavals in a national context. But while in big countries this task is usually manageable – the French revolution may be seen as originating mainly from internal processes – in small countries it may be deeply ambiguous. In them upheavals have to be handled in the national framework despite the fact that their unfolding may have been thoroughly and directly marked by international crises. Even though determined by supranational developments, a sense has to be made of them at the national level – which adds a rich and charged dimension for the symbolic struggles of the national past.

Notes 1 In dealing with the Civil War itself and its consequences in the 1920s and the beginning of the 1930s I have occasionally drawn from an earlier study: Risto Alapuro, State and Revolution in Finland (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988).

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02 Ohto Manninen, “Rauhantahtoa ja väkivaltaa”, in Ohto Manninen, ed., Itsenäistymisen vuodet 1917–1920, vol. 2. Taistelu vallasta (Helsinki: VAPK-kustannus, 1992), p. 453; Jaakko Paavolainen, Poliittiset väkivaltaisuudet Suomessa 1918. 2 vols (Helsinki: Tammi, 1966–7), vol. 1, p. 94, vol. 2, p. 192. 03 Aatos Tanskanen, Venäläiset Suomen sisällissodassa vuonna 1918 (Tampere: Acta Universitatis Tamperensis A, no. 91, 1978), pp. 39–42, 206; Jussi T. Lappalainen, Punakaartin sota, vol. 1 (Helsinki: Opetusministeriö, 1981), pp. 150–3, 167–8; Anthony F. Upton, The Finnish Revolution 1917–1918 (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1980), pp. 336–42. 04 William C. Martin, “A Sociological and Analytic Study of the Development of the Finnish Revolution of 1917–1918 in Terms of Social Structures” (PhD thesis, Vanderbilt University, 1970), p. 412. 05 See I. Barta et al., Die Geschichte Ungarns (Budapest: Corvina, 1971), pp. 454–7. 06 Jeff Godwin, “Toward a New Sociology of Revolutions”, Theory and Society, 23 (1994) 756. For more detail, see Risto Alapuro, “Artisans and Revolution in a Finnish Country Town”, in Michael P. Hanagan, Leslie Page Moch and Wayne te Brake, eds, Challenging Authority: The Historical Study of Contentious Politics (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1998), pp. 86–8. 07 Contrary to a view found in a number of studies. See, e.g. Hannu Soikkanen, “Miksi revisionismi ei saanut kannatusta Suomen vanhassa työväenliikkeessä?” in Lauri Hyvämäki et al., eds, Oman ajan historia ja politiikan tutkimus (Helsinki: Otava, 1967), pp. 183–99; Rasila, Viljo, Eino Jutikkala and Keijo K. Kulha, Suomen poliittinen historia, vol. 2 (Porvoo and Helsinki: WSOY, 1976). The question of the degree of polarization, including the short-term polarization in 1917, is far from settled. 08 Also the term “internal war” (sisällissota) appeared. 09 Katherine Verdery, What was Socialism, and What Comes Next? (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1996), p. 3. 10 Juha Siltala, Lapuan liike ja kyyditykset 1930 (Helsinki: Otava, 1985), pp. 443–9, 455–69. 11 Suojeluskuntain käsikirja. I osa. Sotilaallinen kasvatus (Helsinki, 1918), 12 (emphasis in original). 12 See Timo Soikkanen, Kansallinen eheytyminen – myytti vai todellisuus? Ulko- ja sisäpolitiikan linjat ja vuorovaikutus Suomessa vuosina 1933–1939 (Porvoo and Helsinki: WSOY, 1984). 13 Well organized and mobilized, and with a well-established position in the political system, the Finnish peasantry was totally unlike the Eastern European peasantries, which were frequently exploited by the political elites. Moreover, Finland, again unlike most other successor states, had seen its working class defeated at the very outset of the period. 14 In Lithuania the democratic system fell already in 1926–7. 15 Cited in Risto Alapuro, Akateeminen Karjala-Seura: Ylioppilasliike ja kansa 1920- ja 1930-luvulla (Helsinki: WSOY, 1973), p. 148. 16 To be precise, the Communist party was represented in Parliament through an organization initially founded for cooperation between Communists and left-wing socialists, the Finnish People’s Democratic League (Suomen kansan demokraattinen liitto, SKDL). 17 Allardt lists “class conflicts,” “ideological struggle between Communists and all others,” “tension between towns and the countryside,” and “the language conflict” between Finnish speakers and Swedish speakers, in this order, as four main cleavages which have been important in different phases in twentieth-century Finland. See Erik Allardt, Finnish Society: Relationship Between Geopolitical Situation and the Development of Society (Helsinki: Research Group for Comparative Sociology, University of Helsinki, Research Reports, no. 32, 1985), pp. 29–48.

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18 Ilkka Heiskanen, “Epilogi: yhteiskuntatieteet, käytännön yhteiskuntateoria ja maamme älyllinen ilmasto”, in Jaakko Nousiainen and Dag Anckar, eds, Valtio ja yhteiskunta: Tutkielmia suomalaisen valtiollisen ajattelun ja valtio-opin historiasta (Porvoo, Helsinki and Juva: WSOY, 1983), p. 321. 19 In the same year two other major novelists, Veijo Meri and Paavo Haavikko, also happened to publish novels set in 1918. 20 Alexandre Adler and Jean Rony, L’Internationale et le genre humain (Paris: Editions Mazarine, 1980), pp. 203–14. 21 Allard, Finnish Society, pp. 34–5. 22 See, e.g. Erik Allardt, “Types of Protests and Alienation”, in Erik Allardt and Stein Rokkan, eds, Mass Politics (New York: The Free Press, 1970), pp. 49–57. 23 Erik Allardt, “Community Activity, Leisure Use and Social Structure”, Acta Sociologica, 6 (1962), 79. 24 Kimmo Rentola, “Toinen kirja”, in Seppo Aalto and Kimmo Rentola, eds, Karkkilan eli Högforsin ja Pyhäjärven entisen Pahajärven ihmisten historia (Jyväskylä: Karkkilan kaupunki, 1992), pp. 871–6; Risto Alapuro, Suomen synty paikallisena ilmiönä 1890–1933 (Helsinki: Hanki ja jää, 1994), pp. 313–14. 25 For example, Jari Ehrnrooth, Sanan vallassa, vihan voimalla. Sosialistiset vallankumousopit ja niiden vaikutus Suomen työväenliikkeessä 1905–1914. (Helsinki: Suomen Historiallinen Seura, Historiallisia tutkimuksia, no. 167, 1992); Risto Alapuro, Suomen synty paikallisena ilmiönä 1890–1933 (Helsinki: Hanki ja jää, 1994); Sirkka Arosalo, Poliittisen väkivallan yhteiskunnallisista edellytyksistä: punainen ja valkoinen väkivalta Suomessa vuonna 1918 (Tampere: Tampereen yliopisto, Acta Universitatis Tamperensis. Ser. A, vol. 428, 1994); Pertti Haapala, Kun yhteiskunta hajosi: Suomi 1914–1920 (Helsinki: Painatuskeskus, 1995); Ulla-Maija Peltonen, Punakapinan muistot: tutkimus työväen muistelukerronnan muotoutumisesta vuoden 1918 jälkeen (Helsinki: SKS, 1996); Jukka Rislakki, Kauhun aika: neljä väkivallan kuukautta keskisuomalaisessa jokilaaksossa (Tampere: Vastapaino, 1995); Mikko Uola, “Seinää vasten vain!”: poliittisen väkivallan motiivit Suomessa 1917–18 (Helsinki: Otava, 1998); Jari Eerola, Henkilötappiot Suomen sisällissodassa 1918 (Tammisaari: Tie Tammisaareen–toimikunta, 1998); Hannu Takala, Taistelu Lahdesta 1918 (Jyväskylä: Lahden kaupunki, 1998); Marko Tikka and Antti O. Arponen, Koston kevät. Kapina, sisällissota ja sitä seurannut jälkiselvittely Lappeenrannan seudulla vuonna 1918 (Porvoo, Helsinki and Juva: WSOY, 1999). Movies are Tero Jartti’s Aapo (1994) and Olli Saarela’s Lunastus (Redemption, 1997). Among the plays are Ilpo Tuomarila’s Hennalan torvisoittokunta (Brass band in Hennala, 1998) and Olli Soinio’s TV-play Pako punaisten päämajasta (Escape from the Reds’ headquarters, 2000). One of the novels is Juhani Syrjä, Juho 18. Monologiromaani (Jyväskylä: Gummerus, 1998). 26 Interview of Heikki Ylikangas, Yliopisto, 47(5) (1999), 24–6. 27 Cf. Pierre Nora, “Entre Mémoire et Histoire”, in Pierre Nora, ed, Les lieux de mémoire, vol. 1. La République (Paris: Gallimard, 1984), xv–xlii. 28 Sirkka Ahonen, Historiaton sukupolvi? Historian vastaanotto ja historiallisen identiteetin rakentuminen 1990-luvun nuorison keskuudessa (with an English summary: The No-History Generation? The Reception of History and the Construction of Historical Identity by Young People in the 1990s) (Helsinki: Suomen Historiallinen Seura, Historiallisia tutkimuksia, no. 202, 1998), pp. 67–8, 185.

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11 CIVIL WAR VICTIMS AND THE WAYS OF MOURNING IN FINLAND IN 1918 Ulla-Maija Peltonen

Civil War victims What do we really know about the Finnish Civil War of 1918, and its effect on the lives of ordinary people? – Not that much. We possess a great deal of information about the events of the War and the causes behind it,1 not to mention all the numerical data we have of the War: we know how many participated in the War, how many were convicted, injured, widowed or orphaned and how many were killed. However, only a few studies have been conducted about the experiences of those who survived the War. The Finnish Civil War of 1918 ended in tragedy. The truth about the consequences of the War and the War itself were so painful that half a century had to pass before it was even possible to talk about the War from the point of view of the losers. The most traumatic feature of the War was that in their retaliation, the victors, that is, the Whites, caused the death of so many people. The traumatic memories related to violence, revenge and hiding and covering up the truth; further, official versions of the War never really admitted what had happened. War was and is a catastrophe in any person’s life. Almost 35,000 people died during the Civil War, but eighty years ago there were no support groups or professional advisors for victims and their families who could help them in a situation where they had lost their feeling of continuity. Talking about the deceased and death as well as discussing the horrors of war with others who had suffered, were means of coping with the mental chaos. Another way to cope was, for example, to actively participate in taking care of the graves of fallen relatives or to participate in the activities of various organisations.

Social memory and narrators Narrators played an important role in handing down social memory for future generations and in upholding traditions. In examining the Civil War of 1918, 184

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the concept of social memory is, in my opinion, of vital importance,2 and an interesting example of social memory are the narratives and legends associated with the events of 1918. People carry on a continual dialogue with their environment and their past by acting upon them, reading (e.g. historical literature), by looking at photographs, watching movies and television, by listening to the radio and by communicating their thoughts and ideas to other persons. Since the narrative topic has an important emotional significance for the individual or his/her close circle of acquaintances, it is remembered and told repeatedly. The concepts transmitted by narrators may be in complete opposition to the dominant value system in society. At issue in recollected experience is tradition in both the collective and individual life, and what is vital is the narrator’s contact with the audience’s experience. The meaning of the narratives for the listeners has a fundamental influence on both the preservation and narration of the tradition.3 First-person narrative or personal experience narrative is recollected narrative in the literal sense of the term, for in the words of Walter Benjamin, ‘[a]n experienced event is finite – at any rate – confined to one sphere of experience; a remembered event is infinite, because it is only a key to everything that happened before it and after it.’4 My study of civil war memories and the ways of mourning5 is based on remembrances, oral history and folklore collected during the 1960s and 1980s as well as letters and diaries. Additionally, I use applied drawings that are based on memories and portray the year 1918. One collection from a School for Girls in Helsinki includes 77 pictures that portray the Civil War in Helsinki. They are presumed to date from the year 1919 or 1920. At the beginning of this century, art education in Finnish schools paid a great deal of attention to making observations, to imagination and memories.6 A teacher, Anna Sofia Sahlstén, applied this method in order to help her pupils cope with their experiences of the Civil War. Her pupils were 11- to 16-year-old girls from Helsinki and in their drawings they portray the War, the Red Guard, house searches conducted by Reds, soldiers of the White Guard and the Civil Guard, captured Reds, street fights and scenes from Helsinki as well as the victory parade of German soldiers and the Commanderin-Chief of the Civil War, General Mannerheim, in Helsinki in May 1918.

Civil War, women and the ways of mourning We do not know very much about the role of women in the Civil War. The remembrances and folklore of the Civil War can be divided into Red and White memories, as well as the narratives told by and about women. In these narratives, a woman is often described as one of a pair of opposites: a mother or a whore, a saint or a devil. During the War, some 400 Red women were killed. On the Red side, women participated in the War on all fronts with the men. A few thousand women bore arms, constituting about 3 per cent of all Red Guard activity. The women who were armed were mainly young and unmarried and not all Red leaders or Reds in general approved of them without reservation.7 Men on the Red side 185

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called these women the ‘skirt guard’ and the men on the White side called them ‘Red, skirt Russkis’. We do know that the White victors in the War treated the women of the Red Guard cruelly. My studies of remembrance related to cruelty revealed that in particular men of the White persuasion told many stories about gender-based cruelty. Sexuality and matters to do with reproduction were considered dangerous, filthy and scary. Terms that scorned women, such as whore, may have served as a justification for cruelty. In May 1918, after the Red forces had lost in Lahti, more than a hundred young women were executed in a forest in Mustakallio. Only after many years were their remains transferred to a cemetery; and 70 years had to pass before, in 1988, a memorial was built to commemorate these women. Academic research has not been conducted on this incident.8 A woman’s right and duty during the Civil War was to mourn and to remember. After a battle, it was up to the women to find their fallen or lost loved ones and arrange for their burial. The chaos after the War is described in many narratives. It is important for relatives to see the place where a beloved one has died or where he was found because that place can help them to start the process of mourning. Nothing is as terrible as uncertainty. It is clear that the longer it takes to find and identify a deceased, the greater the burden to the family, not to mention such cases when the beloved one is never found, as was often the case in 1918. Narration about the deaths was a direct reaction that made it easier to cope with a painful experience, but it was also something more. Remembering for these people included not only the wish to draw a picture of the War from their perspective, it was also a way of coming to terms with their own grief. It was a need to fill the emptiness that the loss of a near one had created and also a means of paying respect to those who had died for a political cause.9 Rituals are a significant part of the process of working through the emotions and thoughts brought about by death.10 The Church has played, and continues to play a central role in Finland in terminating death rituals. After the Civil War, the Red side’s critique of the Church and its clergy intensified. In 1918, the Church and clergy had openly aligned themselves with the White Army. The different status given to the White victims and the Red victims of the War by the Church was highly evident in the elaborate funerals given to ‘War heroes’ from the White side. On the other hand, many clergymen refused to hold services for fallen Reds, and Red supporters were at a loss to understand why the clergy did not give them permission to grieve and honour the memory of their dead, particularly since Red sympathisers were still officially members of the Church.11 In the narrative which follows, the narrator’s father was executed in the spring of 1918, when the narrator was eight years old. As a railroad employee, the father was an exception, in that, permission was given to bury him in the Church graveyard: There along the track to the paper factory at Kymi, at the edge of the swamp, in the shade of the gloomy pines, my father was lying on his back 186

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with seven comrades who had shared his fate, with the ants investigating his eyes and nostrils. So my mother later told us. All except one were railwaymen. In the middle of a spring day my grief-stricken mother had to drive with her children through Kouvola. One can only imagine what went through my mother’s mind upon seeing the odd stares of people she knew (…) So our father came home and was laid in a little shed, whose door was quietly closed. Dark days followed in the home of brakeman Kuitunen. But our mother did not give in to her sorrow, instead she threw herself into her chores more vigorously than before. Soon her husband lay washed and dressed in a black coffin. And soon the clothes that my father had been wearing were fluttering in the wind on the clothesline in the yard, also washed, neat and tidy. Fluttering there were his homespun coat, his woolen vest, shirt and trousers. And the coat and the vest told the tale: in the chest area were two holes, small ones in the front and large ones behind. I still remember that flag of death. I think that in her own way my mother hung up those clothes for passers-by to see. Perhaps she thought defiantly: now do you all see what you have brought about? In her manner there was a silent defiance in those days, it could be seen in all she did.12 This narrative account of an executed Red is an unusual one because it describes a death ritual, even though the narrator never talks about the funeral. The most essential aspects of the death ritual were the handling of the body and its care and preparation between the moment of death and the funeral. In many cultures these duties are the responsibility of women. The washing of the body is one ritual which signifies not only hygiene and aesthetics but also a service to the dead person, so that he would be ready to leave this world for the next. In the older belief tradition, ritual washing of the body also meant that the corpse would not return to haunt the living.13 The importance of the dead person’s appearance is particularly emphasised in those cases when death comes suddenly and unexpectedly. If the ritual preparations associated with the body cannot take place, the grieving process is delayed. In Finland in 1918, most relatives of Red supporters killed in the War or its aftermath were unable to, or were prevented from, carrying out these important rituals. In the context of the 1918 crisis, the narration of belief legends took on a new relevance and vitality. Through narration, relatives and friends of the dead tried to find explanations for the events and to understand who was responsible. The legends were based on the older belief legend tradition, according to which perpetrators were punished for their crimes. According to the Reds’ concept of justice, the law of fate would punish those who had committed war crimes, since neither the courts nor the legal system had done their duty in this respect. The legends condemn, for example, those priests who approved of the Whites’ acts of terror. The person responsible for the execution of a Red or the desecration of the 187

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dead receives a supernatural punishment in the legends, he falls gravely ill or commits suicide. One man born in 1913, for example, told the following tale: A certain seamstress whose opinions were vehemently Red was happy to tell the story of what happened to a forest ranger from Parkano who had executed Red guards in the gravel pit at Lehtikangas in Parkano. She told of having heard that the forest ranger had carefully washed his hands, but she maintained that the hands were permanently stained with blood despite the washing. While telling the story, the woman said she bitterly hoped that the blood stains would never leave the forest ranger’s hands. My mother, to whom the woman told this story, felt herself agreeing with this hope, for despite the fact that my father agreed with the Whites, my mother felt a strong sympathy for the Reds.14 This example is interesting because it provides information concerning the narration event itself. Information concerning the context of narration is rare, because in the 1960s, archives still did not ask for this information from narrators. From the example, we see that the narration occurred between two women, which supports the idea that women played a important role in the transmission of folklore. There is also an implicit reference to the Biblical tale of Pontius Pilate here as well.15 The grave sites of executed Reds were for a long time a sensitive subject. Reds were buried both within and outside of cemeteries, and some of the dead were buried in secret places of execution, about which information was nonetheless spread by word of mouth. One woman born in 1900 related the following narrative: In the spring of 1918, the bodies of Reds who were shot were covered in the gravel pit on Tööri heath in Kuusankoski. In the summer the relatives brought flowers and name tags, even though it was forbidden. All sorts of ghost stories circulated, continuous crying and singing of hymns could be heard there.16 There are countless stories of arbitrary deaths in the prison camps, just as there were other uninvestigated shootings of Reds. The memoirs repeatedly tell of how hymn-singing was heard at the sites of unconsecrated graves and how people sometimes also saw apparitions: Everybody talked about the fact that after the spring of 1918 one could hear, from the cemetery at Kalevankangas in Tampere, the singing of the following hymn after midnight: ‘One must truly lament and grieve sorely, when injustice takes power and evil increases. Has the whole world already fallen mute, since no one is preaching the Lord’s justice?’17 188

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It is interesting that in all of these narratives the same hymn ‘One must truly lament and grieve sorely’ is repeated. According to the stories, this hymn was popular among the Red supporters. The hymn, which was included in the old church hymnal, was composed by Swedish bishop and court minister Hagvin Spegel, and translated into Finnish by Elias Lönnrot, the compiler of the ‘Kalevala’. It was part of the so-called ‘Zeitklage’ poetry, whose composers belonged, in their time, to the intellectual elite of Germany, France, England and Finland. This poetry aims at a description of how the present times are in all respects wretched. All age groups and classes are dishonest, immoral and greedy. The upper classes steal what belongs to the proletariat, corruption is widespread and sincere friendship is unknown.18 The words of the hymn are openly critical and they were well suited to the Reds’ situation in 1918 and thereafter. An attempt was made in many places to prevent people from maintaining the graves of Reds, and it was not allowed to congregate at the graves or to bring flowers, much less to erect grave markers. This occurred despite instructions issued in 1918 by the Ministry of the Interior that the bodies of those Reds who had been executed or died as a consequence of the War could be transferred to cemeteries or the grave sites be encircled with fences. There was, however, a contradiction between official policy and actual practice. The maintenance of graves was in many places left entirely up to the Reds. In many parishes, ‘maintenance committees for the graves of comrades’, founded by labour organisations, took over the duties of keeping the graves in good repair.19 Struggles also went on for the right to grieve and cherish the memory of the deceased. The Whites considered themselves entitled, as victors, to erect their own memorial monuments, and the significance of these memorials was well understood. In many places the labour organisations also wanted to erect proper grave markers for Red victims, but officials put a stop to these plans. Despite the prohibitions, and under threat of imprisonment, the labour organisations held memorial gatherings at the graves of Reds throughout this period and into the 1930s. In addition to oral tradition, postcards, photographs, objects and labour publications played a very important part in the cherishing of memorials. For example, in the only illustrated working-class periodical Itä ja Länsi (East and West), which came out twice a month from 1924 onwards, narratives and photographs of ‘revolutionary fighters’, grave sites and the events of 1918 were published. Belief legends have functioned as a type of social memory in losing-side tradition, and the narrators of the Civil War memoirs recorded in the 1960s played a vital role as guardians of this tradition. The vitality of the tradition can be explained in part by its purpose: to bring to light crimes which have been committed, but which were not recognised or admitted by those in power. References to the breaking of the fifth commandment, ‘Thou shalt not kill’, are often clear. In order for this crime to be absolved, it was necessary that the deceased first be laid to rest in a dignified manner in consecrated ground. According to the memoirs, honouring the dead person’s memory required that the deceased be buried in the proper fashion and given a proper grave, and that the Church recognise the 189

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rights of its members, including Red supporters. These belief legends took to some extent the place of the women’s traditional mourning rituals, but they also served as a social memory that was based on a need to testify about judicial, psychological and cultural discrimination that the official history did not portray. The mourning of women, crying on the graves and keeping up the memory of fallen Reds, are not just curiosities but they have wider political and social meaning. The burial sites and memorials of the Reds were not mapped out until 1969, when the mapping was supervised by the ‘National War Memorial Society’ founded by the labour unions. In Helsinki, a national memorial to the Reds was not unveiled to the public until 1970.20 For Reds’ descendants, the significance of a grave marker erected in Tammisaari in 1988 for the Reds killed in 1918 can be seen in the following narrative: Finally after 70 years of waiting we got a grave memorial in Tammisaari, on which I found the name of my grandmother’s father. All these years my grandmother has grieved over the fact that her father did not have a proper grave. Now he does. I visited the place on July 3rd, 1988, and took a photograph of the memorial. (…) I also sent a photo to my grandfather and grandmother and their joy and surprise were great, they were proud of the fact that even one descendant will preserve the memory of her great-grandfather who starved to death. (…) The legacy of 1918 is valuable and binding.21 The year 1918, the Red deceased, and the grave memorials all still arouse conflicting emotions, as was illustrated in numerous letters to the editor published in newspapers in connection with the consecration ceremony for a mass grave of over 3,000 Reds in Dragsvik, Tammisaari, May 1993, or the sensation caused by an artwork commissioned from artist Hannu Lindholm, which was unveiled in Hämeenlinna in 1992. The monument consisted of wooden crosses painted red, on which the artist had written the names of local Reds who had been killed during the War or its aftermath. These carefully designed wooden crosses were on display out of doors in a small park near the Hämeenlinna railway station. This work of art unleashed a flood of emotions. Unknown persons (perhaps descendants of the deceased Reds) began to place flowers at the foot of some of the crosses, while other crosses were knocked down, until the artwork, which was on temporary display in any case, had to be removed ahead of schedule. References made by narrators concerning the political situation or cultural debate at the moment of writing, or the literature which they themselves have read, are interesting because they reveal the conflicts and dialectics between political and cultural values. These phenomena were also associated with silence or an attempt to forget the events of 1918. A woman born in 1937 relates: The Red Guards were such a sensitive subject for both of my parents that they didn’t tell me the story of my grandfather. By using my arithmetic 190

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I realized already at a young age that he had died before his time. When I asked how he had died, my mother didn’t answer, and my father said in an offhand way, ‘he just died’. It is certainly remarkable that I didn’t press for a fuller answer. Only after both my parents died did I hear the truth from my aunt (my father’s sister). (…) I am grateful that at least my aunt told me such an important thing about my grandfather. Perhaps it is in my blood that I am politically left-wing.22 Another woman born in 1901 relates: I could never under any circumstances have told my own relatives that my husband had been a ‘Red’, and it’s a wonderful thing to be honest in this regard on paper and to speak from the fullness of my heart about the past issues and events I’ve lived through.23 These examples indicate not only the narrator’s family histories and their inner conflicts, but also those conflicts and tensions existing in the society at large. By hushing them up, important issues were removed from the business of everyday life. This same phenomenon is also common among those Jews who survived the concentration camps. From the standpoint of interpretation, silence, like all non-linguistic communication, is to a large degree dependent on its context and is for this reason an interesting phenomenon.24

How has the Civil War been remembered? The remembrances of the Civil War are emphasised both individually and socially. Duality and differentiation have dominated the remembrances and narratives of the War until the 1960s. The multifaceted effects of the 1918 War and its aftermath are revealed as different interpretations of the events both in research and in the literature of that period. At its most concrete, this complexity is manifested in the dispute of what to call the War. Even today, the 1918 War is known as the War of Freedom, the Class War, the Civil War, the Revolution or the Red Rebellion depending on the perspective that is emphasised. For a long time, these terms have been ideologically heavily charged. In the settlement of the events of the War, the conservative side or Whites adapted the term War of Freedom, and the socialist–communist side established the term Class War. However, in particular during the 1960s, an effort was made to soften the division between the interpretations and the terms, and also to give some credit to the Reds. I have been able to define at least four different phases of the remembrance of the Civil War that are directly tied to the social and political atmosphere in society in general.25 The First phase lasted from 1918 to the 1930s when the victors of the War and their perspective and interpretation prevailed; they called it the War of Freedom. Both sides described cruelties that were committed during the War. However, the 191

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important difference was that the oral and written narratives of Whites were given the status of ‘official truth’. At the same time, Whites upheld mythical beliefs about the cruelty and inhumanity of Reds, by which they legitimised their own behaviour and kept silent about their own crimes. However, the oral and written narration of Reds, that is, the losers of the War, lived on persistently parallel to the official interpretation. They described arbitrary executions and retaliations by the victors. Although mourning is always a difficult process, it was easier for the victors. They were given the opportunity to express their grief through a variety of different channels. Commemorating White victims was a visible part of the official culture, there were ceremonies for fallen heroes, memorials were erected, memorial volumes published and Whites were honoured both in music and in art. Academic research also accepted the viewpoint of the victors. However, some descriptions about the experiences of Reds began to surface in the literature.26 The battle over honouring the Civil War victims culminated in the 1920s when the winning side did not allow the Red sympathisers to cherish the memory of their dead. They blew up or destroyed memorial stones in several towns. In the 1920s and 1930s some on the losing side re-started political activism, and memories of the Civil War played an important role in the rise of the illegal Communist Party in the 1920s and 1930s. However, the losing side had to fight constantly for their right to mourn their victims.27 More than 350 towns had erected statues commemorating White victims of the War by the 1930s, but there were only five official memorials in honour of the Red side. The Second phase started after the Second World War in the 1940s and 1950s. The Soviet Union had won the War against Finland, and this offered an opportunity for the losers of the Civil War to gain more public visibility for their interpretation of the War. However, the official truth was not challenged by these new interpretations and they were made public mainly within the strengthening labour movement. In the 1940s and 1950s, almost 100 new statues were erected in memory of those on the losing side of the War. Oral narratives about the misery of the Red supporters at the prisoner of war camps and about discrimination against Reds and their families in schools, workplaces and in society in general spread within families, work crews and labour organisations who identified with the Red side.28 The function of this narrative tradition was amplified by the fact that the official truth had not admitted any wrongdoings in 1918. The War of Freedom and Class War interpretations were still strongly opposed. However, some descriptions about the experiences of Reds began to surface in literature, in novels and in poems. The Third phase began in the 1960s. The shift of attitudes during the 1960s was strongly influenced by a public dialogue. The most visible start to the discussion was initiated by writers such as Väinö Linna. Most important was the second part of his trilogy ‘Here Under the Northern Star’ (1960), which portrayed a different view of the War; a view that did not coincide with the official version. It was a description from the perspective of the losing party.29 In the academic world, research began to focus on the structural features that had both economically and 192

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socially divided Finnish society in 1917 and 1918. The terms ‘War of Freedom’ and ‘Class War’ softened to a more neutral term, ‘Civil War’. At the same time, various archives embarked on programmes for the collection of remembrance and folklore data of the Civil War. As a result of these collections, thousands of Finns wrote tens of thousands of pages of war memories in different archives. Both parties wrote about their experiences, however, and this collection of memories brought to light new information, especially about the experiences of the Red side. It was of vital importance that ordinary citizens had the opportunity to participate in the dialogue. In their narratives the official memory called into question and issues that had been forgotten in the public were brought to attention. These narratives were an important means for the people to distribute and bring to light a totally new world of experiences that the official culture had either denied or forgotten. In addition to that, the narratives also revealed some contradictions between the popular image of history and the image that prevailed in research. The revolution in attitudes that took place in the 1960s, the openness of the folklore collecting efforts, and the fact that different archives existed simultaneously, raised hopes among those narrators identifying with the losing side that a truthful version of history might still be possible. The narrators’ comments, prefacing and concluding statements, accompanying letters and other correspondence with the archives, as well as further biographical material are important because they provide information concerning the social and cultural context in which the folklore was narrated.30 In the narratives, official memory was called into question and topics which had been previously hushed-up and generally forgotten were brought to light. Here the moral–philosophical questions of persons identifying with the losing side became central. Such questions included: what is the definition of humanity, what can be considered justice, what is injustice and what is heroism? Oral recollection was for them an important way of sharing and making public the experiential world disputed and forgotten by official culture. In addition, the narration addressed the contradictions between the folk view of history and the view conveyed by historical research. I have compared the materials from three archives: these are the officially, politically and ideologically neutral Folklore Archives of the Finnish Literature Society (henceforth FLS), the Labour Archives and the People’s Archives, both of which are attached to the labour movement. In terms of political and ideological background, the Labour Archives are the archives of the Social Democratic labour movement and its supporters, while the People’s Archives are the archives of the Communist and People’s Democratic labour movement and its supporters. What comes to the fore in the memoirs collected by all of the archives is the narrators’ distrust of the academic version of history. A woman born in 1906 writes: Thank you for organising this questionnaire. Now is the right time to write a true history of 1918, now that all the information and recollections have been gathered together.31 193

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And a man born in 1900 writes: I still hope to get to read an unbiased and truthful historical account of those difficult years.32 Often, narrators writing for the People’s Archives and Labour Archives emphasised the credibility of their ‘own’ research and that of other researchers identifying with the losing side. Some narrators name a specific person in the archives to whom the memoir is addressed. Thus, a woman born in 1867 writes: These few lines contained in ‘Working-Class Memoirs’, dedicated to my late father, have been written chiefly for researchers of the labour movement, and for this reason I forbid the quoting of these memoirs in publications or the media.33 Among the Archives’ narrators were many who wrote their memoirs for the first and perhaps last time to the archive of their choice when the opportunity arose. Among the narrators were also those who had sent material to all three archives, and thus it was possible to compare these materials. It turns out that the narrators’ assumptions concerning the archive and the narrative audience influenced the narrative contents and the mode of narration. Narrators addressed the assumed reader using questions which they themselves then answered. They attempted to counteract the prejudices they assumed their readers would have by carefully arguing their own side of the story. The narrators’ need to interpret their own history appears as a critique of the established version of history and as a commentary on who has the right to interpret the past. In addressing the assumed reader, they narrate for a reader who is either ‘one of us’ or ‘one of them’. The narrators explained and argued the ideas presented in their memoirs much more thoroughly when they wrote to the FLS Folklore Archives than when writing to their ‘own’ archives, the People’s Archives and the Labour Archives. This indicates that they doubted their audience’s ability to properly understand matters. Narrators to the People’s Archives and the Labour Archives trusted that the reader who was ‘one of us’ would understand what was at issue. In narrating to the reader who was ‘one of them’, the outsider, as in the case of the FLS Folklore Archives, the narrators did not want to risk being misunderstood, and so the issues were more carefully argued. The narrators thus wrote on the same themes to different archives, but addressed the assumed listener in different ways. In addition, narrators fell silent concerning some subjects, depending on to whom they were telling the story. Some persons also wrote to a second archive about their experiences in order to make sure that the ‘truth’ would not be forgotten. The collective memories of the Red side were linked to violence, acts of vengeance, cover-ups and denials. The Reds’ trauma was intensified by the fact that those in power would never publicly 194

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admit to what had happened. But as long as it continues to serve a function within the community, social memory can never be completely suppressed. In 1969, labour market organisations also embarked on projects for the charting of all the gravesites of Red supporters. By the 1970s more than 200 towns had erected statues to commemorate the Red side. In 1970, a national memorial honouring the Red victims was unveiled in Helsinki. The Fourth phase started in the 1980s and 1990s and is still in progress. It seems that as time goes by the emotional interpretation of the War is weakening. Since the 1970s and 1980s, research has interpreted the War more and more from the perspective of a revolution or rebellion as well as a civil war. However, after the downfall of the Soviet Union the War of Freedom concept has re-emerged. In 1998 in Tammisaari, for the first time, representatives of all political parties participated in a national commemoration service in honour of Red victims. And in the same year, the Finnish government decided to fund a five-year project called ‘War Victims in Finland in 1914–1922’. Although all the victims of the Civil War and especially all the names, causes of death, as well as the number of victims on the Red side are thoroughly studied, it must be noted that the project is not called ‘Civil War Victims in Finland 1918’. This reveals that this issue is still problematic, even today. Recently in 2000, statues commemorating Reds and Whites are quite equally distributed in almost all towns. There is, however, one significant difference between the memorials erected for the victors and the losers of the War: on the White side, the victims have from day one had a name, but on the Red side, they have till this day remained mainly anonymous. However, it seems that recently also the Red side has started to regain its individuality. In 1988, when the memorial statue in Tammisaari was erected, the names of all victims commemorated by the grave were carved on the stone; and later on more names were added to the monument. In many towns, names of fallen Reds have been added to already existing Red memorials. And in some towns, shared monuments have been erected to commemorate the victims of both sides. Rites and folklore maintain remembrance, and the community has to award these war monuments a meaning before they can truly represent a shared memory for both sides.34 Regaining trust between citizens who were on different sides is a slow and difficult process. Not until 2000, was the Civil War for the first time rewarded its own permanent exhibition rooms in the National Museum of Finland. Many different factors have influenced the processing of the difficult memory of the Civil War and this process is still underway. A dual and separate cherishing of Civil War remembrances was evident in Finland right up to the 1960s. The losers of the War, that is, the Reds, were bitter, first, because the official truth did not admit any crimes or violence but instead covered them up or concealed them. Second, the official truth exaggerated and misrepresented the crimes and wrongdoings of the Reds, and even later this false information was not corrected. Third, important public officials, such as clergymen, judges and teachers were biased against the Red side after the War. Fourth, the interpretation of the War in public 195

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was such that Red supporters could not identify with it; and fifth, Red sympathisers were not allowed to publicly display their grief by, for example, honouring their dead. Owing to these facts different frontiers of memory came to exist and prevail. Official versions are not the only factors that influence how people conceive fairness or injustice, goodness or harmfulness. ‘Unofficial’ common beliefs are also important, and they are often passed on from generation to generation within families or among friends. However, the important questions are: who has the power to tell about the past, what is said, and how is history depicted; what kind of a view and interpretation does the official history give of the past?

Notes 1 For more details see for example: Risto Alapuro, State and Revolution in Finland (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988); Anthony F. Upton, The Finnish Revolution 1917–1918 (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1980). 2 James Fentress and Chris Wickham, Social Memory (Oxford, 1992), pp. 87–143; Allesandro Portelli, The Death of Luigi Trastulli and Other Stories (Albany NY, 1991), pp. 51–3; Ulla-Maija Peltonen, Punakapinan muistot. Summary: Memories of the Civil War. A Study of the Formation of the Finnish Working-class Narrative Tradition after 1918 (Helsinki, 1996), pp. 414–37; U.-M. Peltonen, ‘The Return of the Narrator’, in Anne Ollila, ed., Historical Perspectives on Memory (Helsinki: Studia Historica 61, 1999), pp. 115–37. 3 Walter Benjamin, ‘Some Motifs in Baudelaire’, in Charles Baudelaire: A Lyric Poet in the Era of High Capitalism, trans. Harry Zohn (London: Verso, 1973). I referred to the Finnish translation: Silmä väkijoukossa: Huomioita eräistä motiiveista Baudelairen tuotannossa (Helsinki, 1986), p. 13. 4 Walter Benjamin, Illuminations. Essays and Reflections, ed. and with Introduction by Hannah Arendt, trans. by Harry Zohn (New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1968), p. 202. 5 My study is a part of ‘Oral History and the Interpretation of History’, Academy of Finland Research Project 1999–2001. 6 Paula Miettinen, ‘Kauneus jalostaa – Anna Sahlstén taiteilijana, piirustuksen opettajana ja Piirustusopettajayhdistyksen puheenjohtajana’ Pro gradu – tutkielma (Master’s thesis), Department of Art Education, University of Art and Design Helsinki UIAH, 1997. 7 Ulla-Maija Peltonen, ‘Kansalaissota ja naiset: sosiaalinen muisti ja kerronta’ (‘Civil War and Women: Social Memory and Telling’), in Maria Vasenkari, Pasi Enges and Anna-Leena Siikala, eds, Telling, Remembering, Interpreting, Guessing: a Festschrift for Professor Annikki Kaivola-Bregenhoj on her 60th birthday, 1st February 1999 (Joensuu, 2000); Marja Piiroinen-Honkanen, ‘Punakaartin aseelliset naiskomppaniat 1918’ Pro gradu – tutkielma (Master’s thesis). Department of History, University of Helsinki 1997; Juhani Piilonen, ‘Women’s Contribution to “Red Finland” 1918’, Scandinavian Journal of History, 13(1) (1988), 39–48; Risto Jaakkola, ‘Vallankumous ja punaiset naiset 1918’, in Oikeutta ja historiaa (Porvoo, 1987), pp. 47–66. 8 Juha Alenius: Toimeentulopakosta valtiota vastaan. Naiset sisällissodan jälkiselvittelyissä Lahdessa 1918. Pro gradu – tutkielma (Master’s thesis). Department of Finnish History, University of Joensuu 1996. Lena Björklund, ‘Punakaartin naiset saivat muistomerkin’, Tiedonantaja 20.5.1988, pp. 20–1. 9 Jay Winter, Sites of Memory, Sites of Mourning. The Great War in European Cultural History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995).

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10 Aili Nenola, Studies in Ingrian Laments. FF Communication 234 (Helsinki 1982), pp. 97–111, 261–2. 11 Hannu Soikkanen has dealt with the relations between religion, the Church and the labour movement at the beginning of the nineteenth century. See Hannu Soikkanen, Sosialismin tulo Suomeen (Porvoo, 1961), pp. 140–160, 295–312; Kirsti Kena, Kirkon aseman ja asenteiden muotoutuminen itsenäistyneessä Suomessa 1918–1922 (Helsinki 1979), pp. 74–137. 12 Labour Archives, ‘Male Born 1911’, in Peltonen, ed., Punakapinan muistot, pp. 213–14. 13 Ulrika Wolf-Knuts, ‘Ruumiinpesu – naisten työtä’, in Aili Nenola and Senni Timonen eds, Louhen sanat: Kirjoituksia kansanperinteen naisista (Helsinki: Finnish Literature Society, 1990), pp. 176, 179. 14 Folklore Archives, ‘Man Born 1913’, in Peltonen, ed., Punakapinan muistot, pp. 229–30. 15 Ibid. 16 (Folklore Archives, ‘Woman Born 1900’, in Peltonen, ed., Punakapinan muistot, p. 224. 17 (Folklore Archives, ‘Woman Born 1909’, in Peltonen, ed., Punakapinan muistot, p. 226. 18 Martti Haavio, ‘The Upside-Down World’, Studia Fennica, 1959, pp. 209–21. 19 See Peltonen, Punakapinan muistot, and Tauno Saarela, Suomalaisen kommunismin synty 1918–1923 (Helsinki 1996). 20 The national memorial to the Reds, Crescendo, was designed by Taisto Martiskainen. For more on the unveiling of the statue, see, for example, Kansan Uutiset 31.8.1970; Suomen Sosialidemokraatti 31.8.1970. 21 Labour Archives, ‘Woman Born 1958’, in Peltonen, ed., Punakapinan muistot, p. 240. 22 Labour Archives, ‘Woman Born 1937’, in Peltonen, ed., Punakapinan muistot, pp. 28–9. 23 Folklore Archives, ‘Woman Born 1901’, in Peltonen, ed., Punakapinan muistot, p. 29. 24 Lawrence L. Langer, Holocaust Testimonies: The Ruins of Memory (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1991), pp. xiii–xv. 25 Compare Chapter 10 by Alapuro in this volume. 26 For more details see Maria-Liisa Kunnas, Kansalaissodan kirjalliset rintamat [Literary Frontlines of the Civil War] (Helsinki, 1976) and Heikki Ylikangas, ed., Vaikea totuus: Vuosi 1918 ja kansallinen tiede [The Difficult Truth. The Year 1918 and the National Scholarship] (Helsinki 1993). 27 Ulla-Maija Peltonen, ‘Red Memoirs from a “Black Time” in Finland: Radical Working Class Reminiscences of the 1920s and 30s’, in Tauno Saarela and Kimmo Rentola, eds, Communism, National and International (Helsinki: Studia Historica 58, 1998), pp. 273–98. 28 Ulla-Maija Peltonen, ‘Workers Narrative Tradition in Finland after 1918’, in Flemming Hemmersam, ed., To Work, to Life or to Death: Studies in Working Class Lore (Copenhagen: SFAF-Publications 37, 1996), pp. 160–216. 29 Risto Alapuro, ‘50-luvun vapautuminen ja 60-luvun välttämättömyydet, in 60-luku’, Seminaarien aineistot 20.3.93 and 17.4.93 pidetyistä seminaareista Kirjan talolla Helsingissä. Helsinki, 1994. 30 Hermann Bausinger, ‘On Contexts’, in Nikolai Burlakoff and Carl Lindahl, eds, Folklore on Two Continents (Bloomington: Trickster Press 1983), pp. 273–9. 31 Folklore Archives, ‘Woman Born 1906’, in Peltonen, ed., Punakapinan muistot, p. 101. 32 Folklore Archives, ‘Man Born 1900’, in Peltonen, ed., Punakapinan muistot, p. 101. 33 Labour Archives, ‘Woman Born 1867’, in Peltonen, ed., Punakapinan muistot, p. 101. 34 Cf. Pierre Nora, ‘From Liex de mémoire to Realms of Memory’ and ‘General Introduction: Between Memory and History’, in Realms of Memory. vol 1. Conflicts and Divisions (New York: Columbia University Press, 1996), pp. xv–xxiv, 1–23.

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12 REMEMBERING THE FINNISH CIVIL WAR Confronting a harrowing past1 Mandy Lehto

Introduction When I began my research on the Finnish Civil War three years ago at Cambridge, I received a pleasant, but passive response from most of my elderly relatives and acquaintances. When I added that it was a study about mourning and remembrance, the reaction changed considerably. Why dredge up all that, they asked me? Didn’t I know it was dangerous to stir up old memories about violence and suffering – better perhaps to let them die off quietly with those who had known them first hand. Others proved more understanding. It was time to lay these painful memories to rest, they assured me, and it was only by discussing these issues in public that the “demons” of 1918 could be purged once and for all. Even the hecklers in the crowd had a point. The 1998 eightieth anniversary marks the last major commemorative event that survivors are likely to see. As the last of the war generation passes away, we have reached the threshold when history that was written in blood is changing to one that is written in ink;2 the act of remembering is now as important as what is being remembered. The transition has triggered a resurgence of public interest in the War, including the current government-sponsored Finnish War Victims’ Project, 1914–22 (Suomen sotasurmat), in which the names and numbers of fallen Finns and foreigners who fought on Finnish soil will finally be determined with reasonable accuracy. It may seem churlish to carp at the project’s objectives – and this is not my intention – but many commentators have pointed out that the reckoning comes a little too late for survivors who might otherwise have benefited from some form of closure and recognition years, even decades before. Surely there is also an element of cultural nostalgia in this search for historical truth at the fin-de-siècle, when the remorseless hostility that has characterized the memory of the War no longer rings true. The time of silence and secrets is passing. But now, as the nation is finally making real strides in coming to terms with the memory of past violence, we must also ask who is listening? 198

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All of this is by way of introduction, a comment on the longevity of traumatic memories and on the difficulties that Finnish society has faced in confronting a past that is tarnished with terror and fratricide. All wars divide, as the historian Samuel Hynes has pointed out, dividing “our” side from “theirs”, soldiers from civilians, men from women, one generation from another, war-lovers from war-haters.3 Civil wars are even more problematic because they lack a broad consensus within society of being “good” or “noble” wars, as the Winter War of 1939–40 was in Finland. My aim is to offer some remarks on why the Civil War has remained unfinished and ambiguous for the bulk of this century. I want to argue that the reason lies in the inherent difficulty of remembering fratricidal violence itself, being as it is, a process that lacks a definitive solution or victory for any given group or individual.4 Ultimately it is a question of compromise. In the aftermath of civil wars, all memories are not created equal. Some groups and individuals have more “influential” memories than others – those who call themselves the victors, for example.5 Political elites have the means and, if necessary, the fire-power to ensure that their version of events is the “right” one, the enduring one, the only one. A fundamental part of this process of constructing “a past” included distortion, obliteration and the forced public silence of those people who had memories of the War that, at best, were only remotely connected to the official version of events. My claim is that the Civil War has been so difficult to integrate into the Finnish past because in the social process of negotiating the historical memory of the conflict – in that battle over history – public remembrance has been ambiguous and provisional. Liberal civil society was weakened after the War. The state, on the other hand, was in a strong position to preserve its rights and institutions. This, of course, was in the War’s immediate aftermath, though it was here that the roots of the problem lay for longer term remembrance: in the lack of consistent justice and compensation, and perhaps even more in the absence of public truth-telling as an alternative to the discursive legitimation of victory by political elites.

The unfinished Civil War The “official” Civil War: distortion and denial We can begin with the “White” victory parade in Helsinki on 16 May 1918. The sun was shining brightly that day. Thick crowds lined the pavements along the parade route through the center of the Finnish capital, some of them dressed in white or carrying white flags, hoping to catch a glimpse of war’s dramatis personae. Young girls and women wandered through the crowd selling corsages in support of the White disabled. Photographs show row upon row of marching heroes of this “War of Liberation” from Russia. The speeches and press coverage focused on the approximately 5,300 Whites who would not come home at the 199

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end of the festivities. The Whites’ German reinforcements were graciously thanked for their assistance in the War, and the general sense of solemnity was extended to those 250 German soldiers who lost their lives in Finland’s struggle. A contemporary observer who did not know otherwise could be excused for seeming confused about the War in question. One of the glaring silences in the official commemoration of the conflict was the omission of the Reds who died in battle, or later in the camps where nearly half of the approximately 28,000 deaths took place. Scant mention was ever made of the 3,000 Russians who perished as volunteers on the Red side.6 In fact political elites were often successful – though not entirely – in distorting historical memory in official public remembrance. “Red” survivors had difficulty erecting monuments to their war dead until well into this century, even if the memorial had no names or political slogans that drew attention to the socialists’ cause. Orphans, widows and invalids were largely neglected on the losing side. “Terror” continued in the workplace. As the bourgeois novelist, Juhani Aho, put it after the liberation of Helsinki in April 1918, “A victory in a civil war is not a victory in which the winners can venerate themselves. If I were to fly the flag, it would be half-mast.”7 But the victors did venerate themselves, at least in the War’s immediate aftermath. It seems to me that the past refused to stay buried because the defeated Reds were not given the chance to change their status as traitors and victims. Even for a nation like Finland that followed a democratic path after the War, a host of salient issues remained unresolved well into the second half of the century, if they were dealt with at all: perpetrators of the White Terror and other illegal acts went unpunished, pensions and reparations for the socialists were neglected, as were so many tangible traces of their war dead and the cause for which they fell. In short, the vanquished Reds were not given the opportunity to reclaim their dignity as equal citizens after the War. Allowing this would have been an admission of fallibility on behalf of political elites, not to mention the implications for the mythic elaboration of national identity that relied so heavily on portraying this as a War of Liberation from Russia. The trouble for political elites was in recognizing that the vanquished represented a group with legitimate grievances and claims against the state. Another issue was what amends elites were able to make without stirring up the murky waters of accountability that would have compromised their authority and integrity as cultural and political leaders. I hasten to add that there were a number of amnesties for political prisoners in that first decade after the conflict, and while problematic, it was not uniformly impossible to erect memorials to fallen Reds, nor to form private aid organizations or hold political meetings. The situation in postwar Finland was indeed difficult, but in fairness the defeated were given a reasonable amount of leeway to conduct private acts of public remembrance, to hold fundraisers for their needy and to have their say in the working-class press. Socially and materially, however, the amends offered to victims on both sides of the political divide were probably never sufficient to compensate for the loss of life or the 200

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brutality in the War and its aftermath, nor could the perpetrators of war crimes be adequately punished – especially those on the winning side. The reservoir of past suffering for Reds and Whites alike was too formidable for any simple means of understanding and transcending the War.

The political battle over history Here I will briefly discuss the closing off of politics as a feasible venue for redressing past repression for the defeated socialists. I start with a remark from John Gillis’ recent book, Commemorations, in which he claims that “memories are not things we think about, but things we think with. As such they have no existence beyond our politics, our social relations and our histories.”8 As victors of the Civil War, the Whites were in a position to construct a past that they could not only live with, but one that also buttressed the regime and its vision of an independent Finland. Of necessity, this meant valorizing the catastrophe and politically prostrating those who profoundly disagreed with this vision. And because it was both social and political, public commemoration was an ideal way of achieving this, bearing all the facets of ceremonial triumphalism that one would expect of a victorious regime in its parades, monuments and various writings about the War. As a rule the socialists were deemed traitors, or as “Lenin’s wretched henchmen” as the leader of the White Army once put it.9 This blow was softened in the postwar republic by suggesting that the socialists had been duped by the Russians and the Finnish radicals, much like the dim but loyal Juha Toivola in Frans Sillanpää’s novel Meek Heritage (1919), or Sulo in Olli Saarela’s film, The Redemption (1997). This made the socialists’ rebellion against legal order easier to excuse and understand with the pressures of postwar nation building. Perhaps Finland’s soon-to-be Regent, Pehr Svinhufvud, best summed up the official view of the Civil War on 15 May 1918, the day before the White victory parade, and set the tone for public remembrance thereafter: A violent rebellion occurred, directed against the whole of society, lawful order, and civilization. The origins and causes of this violent rebellion are to be found east of Finland’s frontiers, but the hatred directed against the social order which was preached and inculcated in the name of class struggle here at home also played a part in preparing for anarchistic violence. The Fatherland was saved, however, because the core was sound, because there was a sufficiently powerful element wishing to preserve the social order which fought and overcame the violence.10 This implied that the 82,000 Reds imprisoned for political reasons after the War had rebelled against the state, and tens of thousands of workers thus lost their civil rights,11 even their occupations and their children, who were sometimes sent to politically reliable families to be raised as “decent” citizens.12 The deaths of more 201

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than 12,000 “politicals” in the camps, often of starvation, neglect and disease, did nothing to mitigate the already tense postwar situation.13 Nor did the official denial that tens of thousands of socialists had lost their lives in vain, or worse yet as traitors and rebels. Judging by private writings and the working-class press, the whole method of judicial rehabilitation had the very opposite of the intended effect, the camps being known in local vernacular as the “skeleton factories” and “political universities”. The point was to disarm the War’s losers politically to ensure that, as one commentator put it, “the Left would not rise again for one hundred years.” The War had convinced a section of the political Right that Finland was still too immature to govern itself democratically. The bourgeois rump-parliament pushed through the implementation of a hereditary German monarchy to rule Finland after the War, a post to be filled by the Kaiser’s brother-in-law, Prince Friedrich Karl of Hesse.14 But the Prince’s Finnish lessons were cut short with the German defeat in November 1918. With Western pressure for democratic elections in Finland, the socialists regained a parliamentary majority in 1919, in spite of their reduction in voters, though the new office of President had been designed to significantly check Parliament’s powers. Public remembrance for political elites necessitated social amnesia, distortion and even obliteration of the facts if Finland was to maintain its freedom from Russia. This meant that rank and file socialists shouldered the responsibility for the War, though their leaders more often took the brunt of it, and rather effectively, considering how many of them had fled east of the border. As the postwar regime saw it, distinguishing leaders from followers was the way forward in rebuilding the nation. Yes, the losers were considered citizens; they had to be because of international pressure on the postwar regime to run Finland as a democracy. Yet they were seen as lesser citizens than those on the winning side, which became blatantly apparent in the absence of consistent justice and compensation after the War, to say nothing of the lack of official truth-telling. Themes of exclusion and justification characterized the victor’s public commemoration, upholding the values for which the Whites had fought and died. Young men (and most of the White dead were young compared with the Reds) had laid down their lives that the fledgling nation might live, and for the most part, it was that simple in the conflict’s immediate aftermath. Those commentators who thought otherwise – like the novelist Sillanpää, who tried accounting for working class “betrayal” in Meek Heritage – found a reading public unwilling to listen to reason, the political Left included, which snubbed him for not going far enough in his views.

The struggle for public recognition What is at issue here is the continued polarization between traitors and heroes, a cleavage kept alive, as a number of socialists noted, because political elites persisted in celebrating rather than lamenting the brutalities of 1918. “They were heroes, not hooligans,” read one speech at a memorial gathering for fallen Reds 202

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at the Malmi cemetery in 1925.15 Another left-wing commentator remarked in 1919 that: we, who knew the situation so well last spring, cannot understand how a people that suffered so much as the Finns did last spring can still celebrate. Didn’t the Whites’ blood flow as freely as the Reds? Didn’t the numbers of fallen leave as big a gap in the Whites’ ranks as it did in the Reds? … In White homes they surely say that “our boys fell as heroes in honor of the Fatherland.” The prayers at their graves are all heroic verse … they won’t consider that anyone other than the strong youth resting in bourgeois graves may have even a bit of respect for the nation. We refuse to accept this! Why don’t the Whites take part in this collective mourning and carry out the first anniversary with more somber hearts in their homes? We all suffer from the fact that they have crossed the line, trumpeting their final victory.16 The right-wing press was filled with bitterness and the need for revenge, targeted in particular towards the Red leaders: “the members of Finland’s Red Guard were traitors, including many of their womenfolk”, wrote the conservative novelist, Ilmari Kianto. “Isn’t it insane,” he continued, “to go without shooting the turncoats that stifle us … Their executioners’ axe has once and for all cleaved the Finnish nation in two.”17 Ten years later, the same grievances were still there on both political wings of the Finnish press, as they were decade after decade, appearing on various memorial occasions well into the second half of the century. Access to public commemoration offers a form of compensation for the stigma attached to survivors, political prisoners and their families, offering a form of reparation to those seen as enemies of the state.18 But this was not quick in coming for the War’s losers. Permission had to be sought from local state authorities and church officials to erect monuments to fallen socialists, and responses often depended on the losses endured by the city or village, the intensity of the Terror and unofficial local politics. When permission was denied, local workers often turned to clandestine acts of public remembrance. But many of the memorials put up without permission were mysteriously damaged or destroyed, flower beds were torn up and ad hoc crosses or markers were toppled or dumped into rivers. One example was the plain obelisk erected in the town cemetery in Hämeenlinna in 1923. The plot was purchased by a resident called Harald Toivola who had hoped to circumvent the legal troubles of contested space by buying the site himself, though as “mysteriously” as the monument had appeared one night on the plot, it was exploded with dynamite just as surreptitiously. Permission had not been granted to erect it. The bodies of fallen Reds were also not to be buried in church soil, but rather on the peripheries of the cemeteries,19 which spoke volumes about official distinctions between the sacred and the profane. As for material reparations, equal rights and recognition became the bases of the socialists’ tireless petitions to the postwar government to include Red widows 203

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and orphans in state schemes that helped their White counterparts.20 Other pleas were made for the amnesty of political prisoners, the ring-leaders aside, and though the majority of “politicals” were freed in the early 1920s, the issue lingered well into 1927 when the last of the prisoners were released. Amnesty was still a separate issue from compensation and rehabilitation. The state could grant pardons without undermining its credibility and its political position, but offering reparations would have been an admission of error.21 A classic example was the state’s wholesale neglect of Red invalids until after the Second World War,22 when the socialists had finally proven themselves to be “good” and “trustworthy” citizens. These were issues of justice and recognition, which as one survivor writing in the 1960s, says could have brought the Cold War of 1918 to an earlier end: In remembering the Red coup, there is reason to emphasize that many decades of lasting bitterness could have been prevented if so many executions without trial had not taken place … and if the less-guilty would have been released quickly from the prison camps and been allowed to go home – even though food would also have been in very short supply there – since at least 10,000 of them suffered death by starvation in these camps, which was a fate that families could hardly forgive the state and the victors during their lifetimes.23 The perpetuation of the stigma of “treachery” was also apparent in official histories that incorporated the usual repertoire of omissions and mendacities, as did films, novels, memorial books and the right-wing press that used the sacrifices of 1918 as a means of legitimizing the postwar regime. These were all instances of state denial of access to tangible ways of making the past bearable again for the vanquished – hence the ongoing nightmare of the Civil War in Finland. This is not to deny that the reservoir of past suffering was as deep for survivors on the winning side, or that the patriotic bravado of official commemoration made their losses any easier to bear. Only that they had access to the White war myth, however remote or self-deceiving it might have been. For the socialists the War had been a class conscious movement, steeped in ideas of political rights and equalities, as much as in the notion that as workers, they wanted respect and equality. Virtually any commemorative article in the leftwing press or memorial volume during the first postwar decade drew attention to the imbalance between past suffering and present reform or recognition. But reform could only begin in earnest with the acknowledgment of the vanquished as a group with legitimate grievances. And as long as the victors celebrated rather than lamented the War of 1918, the losing side was not in such a position. During the next decade and beyond, the past refused to stay buried as the same message cropped up time and again in the socialist press: “our country’s statesmen are aware that their celebrations embitter the working class, [and] re-open the wounds of the Civil War … it should already be time to take the nation as a whole into consideration.”24 “Our brothers’ blood screams to us from the earth for redemption!”, 204

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was another phrase used ad nauseam in the socialist press and other workingclass writings. Yet state recognition of social and political equality would have compromised its authority and integrity, not to mention suggesting that another version of the War existed, one that deemed the “traitors” as Finns with legitimate grievances and attributed the bloodshed to domestic causes. Considering the horrific losses in the camps and in the Terror,25 the bourgeois government could hardly allow justice for Red victims (or allow them equal access to public remembrance) without undermining its own position, and without casting itself in the role of perpetrator. For obvious reasons, political elites preferred to keep this a war of independence, labeling the Russians as the conflict’s instigators and the Finnish socialists their misguided followers. What we have here is a textbook case of unfinished political business. There are other examples of policy battles over the past that are too numerous to mention here, though there are also cases of political collaboration that are as integral in the compromise of public remembrance. There were more liberal-minded bourgeois politicians who favored amnesties or other means of reintegrating the socialists back into Finnish society, though they faced the challenge of upholding the legitimacy of their conservative peers, while trying to accommodate the pentup grievances of embittered civic activists on the losing side. There were also conciliatory socialists – there had to be if the SDP had any hopes of survival in the postwar world of bourgeois politics. We need only think of the political ritual of conformity par excellence in 1927, when Väinö Tanner, the leader of the first SDP government after the Civil War, led the annual Victory Day Celebration in May that year. The status of victimhood and treachery remained, much to the chagrin of the more radical socialists. Yet this collaboration in an event so blatantly right-wing, so celebratory and against the political grain of the party (or at least that of the prewar orthodox wing of the SDP), seemed a conscious renunciation of commemorative responsibility for a stake in the nation’s politics.

The persistence of resentment Of course there were other reasons for collusion or silence: fear of reprisal, indifference, wanting to forget or blotting out unnecessary pain. There was also what Adam Hochschild has called the “fear of history”, a fear that leads people to avoid dealing with complicity and guilt.26 We must remember that the line between victims and perpetrators is especially blurred in civil wars. The point is that public silence and official exclusion does not necessarily mean forgetting. I want to draw attention to the distinction between “silence” and “secrets” if we are to understand why some societies bury their memories of violence, while others confront them head on. Are the memories in question too painful to speak of – as with so much of the psychological trauma induced by the Holocaust – or are they silenced for other reasons, in fear of political repression, for example, as in the Soviet case where groups, families and individuals colluded with official mendacities but shared their private recollections in secret?27 There are generally examples of 205

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both within societies that have memories of past violence, and the Finnish case was no exception. The distinction seems particularly important in predominantly rural wars – as the Civil War was – where most of the bitterness is generated in tight communities and village environments where everyone knows everyone else. There is something about the “poisoning of the wells” in such situations that prolongs the shelf-life of painful memories.28 So often the brutalities and illegal acts that were committed in provincial Finland during and after the War grew out of local politics and grievances, the desire for revenge or simply of random, gratuitous violence. It was clear that the state’s cautious, rather drawn-out approach to redressing past abuses was not on par with the very immediate tensions of the rural community, where the War raged on in the schoolroom, the workplace and the cemetery, in pranks and in the persistence of stigmatization. In this way a number of personal vendettas were carried out in the name of “justice” that precluded the rapid settling of accounts. Even a quarter century after the War it was still evident that there was no appropriate formula for dealing with past repression. The Second World War helped to bring the nation together, the Winter War especially. A spate of monumentbuilding came hot on the heels of the Armistice, commemorating those who fell in the Second World War as well as the neglected War dead of 1918. So did a rethink of the annual victory parade, which now encompassed all combatants and survivors as more of a memorial occasion than a celebration as in previous years. But there was still no official truth-telling about the harsh realities of the Civil War, partly because the cult of the Winter War relied heavily on recasting the Russians as the perivihollinen, or the hereditary foe. By the 1960s, the press buzzed with inquiries about people’s memories of 1918 and its aftermath, inviting Reds and Whites alike to write to the archive of their choice with their experiences. The response was overwhelming. Somehow the act of putting pen to paper, without fear and in hopes of public recognition, finally brought peace for many survivors who had carried the stigma of “traitor” for almost half a century. “I could never tell my own relatives that my husband had been a Red,” one contributor wrote, “so it is an absolutely wonderful thing to be so honest on paper.”29 Another contributor hoped that Finland’s “wounds can start to scar over” if the truth was finally written down “from this viewpoint”.30 Literature and history also made serious strides into breaking down the official version of the War during the 1960s, Väinö Linna’s fictional trilogy, Here Under the Northern Star31 and Jaakko Paavolainen’s work on the Terror in particular.32 But there was still the dilemma of official truth-telling and retroactive justice, and the dedication to keep the memory of past suffering alive that had become an integral part of working-class mythology, was not so easy to extirpate for some survivors. For them, seeking closure meant forgetting. And now that the defeated were at long last being given even a hope of accessing public commemoration, some of them wanted to expose the distortions and obliterations of the past for what they were. But the civic empowerment that began in earnest after the Second World War did not translate to immediate recognition or removal of persistent stigmatization 206

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that had lingered for decades. Official truth-telling would still have to wait some time. In fact it is only now, more than eight decades after the fact, that political elites are redefining the public commemoration of 1918 in the current governmentfunded project to include those once seen as traitors and deviants, including the socialists and foreign volunteers who perished in the War or its aftermath.33 But even now, with such official acknowledgment and recognition of all losses, it is still clear that survivors and their families need memories that they can live with. Commemoration, as Michael Ignatieff has pointed out, is all about “choosing the past one can bear to remember.”34 More than eighty years after the fact, there is still no simple formula for remembering the Civil War. “I have carried this burden all my life,” reads one letter to the government project, penned in shaky hand, “my father was everything to me. I was seven and remember it all as if it were yesterday. This is why I have been kept on this earth, so that I may bear witness to the truth.”35 But it is not always truth that survivors want to hear or remember. Another survivor contacted the project organizers requesting “conditional” information about her father’s fate, that is, only if he had not fled to Russia after the War. “I don’t want to receive this kind of findings,” she writes, “cut it off from me and all others. I wouldn’t believe it anyway.”36 It was not a past she was prepared to live with.

Conclusion A central question of this book is whether societies heal or improve themselves better by burying or exposing memories of past violence. Civil wars problematize both approaches. Even in authoritarian regimes, the memory of past violence cannot be obliterated completely, just as it can never be confronted satisfactorily for all of the survivors in question. It seems to me that a society’s capacity to accelerate the process of healing depends on the relationship between past suffering and the present recognition of that suffering through retroactive justice, compensation or truth-telling in public remembrance. Where it is absent or held at a significant lag – as in the Finnish case – the process is arduous and protracted to say the least. Decades of pushing for social and material reparations, for justice and official truth-telling that might have given the defeated Reds a chance to change their status as traitors and victims, and to reclaim their dignity as equal citizens after the War, was a long and prostrated battle that most survivors never won in their lifetimes. But even when the past is confronted directly, the road to transcendence is anything but straightforward, particularly if dredging up painful memories and seeking redress for past violence evokes tensions in the present society. What, then, is more important and more just? Is it the maintenance of peace in the present, or the addressing of the past that should take precedence? And at what point is it safe, acceptable or desirable for societies to confront fratricidal violence head on, allowing survivors and succeeding generations to discard the moribund taxonomies of “victors” and “losers” and to see one another, above all, as human beings? The answers are profoundly unclear. 207

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In 1919 an unknown writer in the Tammisaari prison, the deadliest of the Finnish camps in the aftermath of the Civil War, composed a song expressing doubts about the possibility of national redemption: “these wounds, I fear, will give birth to everlasting scars. Where will we get salve for them? Who can treat something like this?” Who indeed? I posed a similar question to one woman who had come to the Tammisaari memorial last summer in search of answers and peace about her family’s past. “Nothing could change the loss [of my grandfather] in the end,” she said as we waited for the ceremony to begin. “It was the death of a loved-one, and for that there was only a silence I could never understand as a child.” Coming to terms with a past of terror and fratricide is an ongoing process. Needs and allegiances can change. Monuments fade into the landscape.37 With this in mind, it seems that the Civil War has been so difficult to integrate into the Finnish past, not only because of the persistence of social and political stigmatization, or the inadequacy of amends or punishments meted out by political elites, but also because of the lag in achieving these ends. Bitterness can compound over time and so can the effects of war-induced traumas, psychologists tell us. The real impact of the brutalities of 1918 would, in some cases, take years to manifest themselves which made justice, compensation and ideas of victimhood arbitrary and subject to change.38 It is this ambiguity, this profound difficulty of remembering such terrible sacrifice over time, that in varying degrees has kept all Finns prisoners of their past.

Notes 01 Earlier versions of parts of this chapter were presented at the School of Slavonic and East European Studies, University of London, in February 1999. 02 Pierre Nora, “The Era of Commemoration”, in Lawrence Kritzman, ed., Realms of Memory: The Construction of the French Past, Vol. III: Symbols (New York: Columbia, 1992), p. 614. 03 Samuel Hynes, A War Imagined: The First World War and English Culture (London: The Bodley Head, 1990), p. 357. 04 For Soviet parallels, see Kathleen Smith, Remembering Stalin’s Victims: Popular Memory and the End of the USSR (Ithaca: Cornell, 1996), p. 7. See also Michael Ignatieff, “Soviet War Memorials”, History Workshop Journal, 17 (Spring 1984), 157–63. 05 See Jay Winter and Emmanuel Sivan, “Setting the Framework”, in Jay Winter and Emmanuel Sivan, eds, War and Remembrance in the Twentieth Century (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), pp. 6–39. 06 All of the preceding numbers of dead are from Jari Eerola and Jouni Eerola, Henkilötappiot Suomen sisällissodassa 1918 (Turenki: Jaarli, 1998), p. 159. Approximately 34,000 Finns died in the Civil War, which includes those who died in the war, the camps or disappeared in 1918. 07 Juhani Aho, Hajamietteissä kapinaviikoilta (Porvoo, 1961), p. 578. 08 John Gillis, ed., Commemorations: The Politics of National Identity (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994), p. 5. 09 “Ylipäällikkö Kenraali Mannerheim Karjalan päämajassa”, Karjalan Sanomat, 26 February 1918. 10 Svinhufvud, cited in David Kirby, ed., Finland and Russia 1808–1920, From Autonomy to Independence: A Selection of Documents (London: Macmillan, 1975), p. 241.

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11 Hannu Soikkanen, Kohti Kansanvaltaa I: 1899–1937 (Vaasa: Oy Kirjapaino 1975), p. 353. 12 When help was provided to Red orphans the parent forfeited full civil rights, including the right to vote on national and local levels. See Matti Kauppi, “Vuoden 1918 Sotaorpojen Huolto ja Kasvatus”, (Gradu, Suomen historian tutkielma, Helsingin Yliopiston historian laitos, April 1991), p. 76. 13 Eerola and Eerola, Henkilötappiot Suomen sisällissodassa 1918, p. 120. 14 Seppo Zetterberg, Finland after 1917 (Helsinki: Otava, 1991), p. 29. 15 Kansallisarkisto (KSA). EK Valpo I, XVIII A2-XVIII A5 2779:389, k. v.1918 kapinavainajien muistonkunnioittaminen, muistojuhla. 16 Spartakus: Vasemmistososialistien äänenkannattaja Hämeenlinnan pakkotyölaitoksella, 17 April 1919, p. 19. 17 Ilmari Kianto cited in Ulla-Maija Peltonen, Punakapinan Muistot (Helsinki: SKS, 1996), p. 206. 18 Smith, Remembering Stalin’s Victims, p. 4. 19 Tauno Saarela, “Luokkataistelua hautausmaalla”, in Mikko Majander, ed., Poliittisen historian vuosikirja (Helsinki, 1992), pp. 103–12. 20 Kauppi “Vuoden 1918 Sotaorpojen Huolto ja Kasvatus”, p. 78. 21 See Smith, Remembering Stalin’s Victims, p. 133 for Soviet parallels. 22 Veikko Niemi, “Punainvalidit”, Väki Voimakas, 4 (1990), 388. 23 Suomen Kirjallisuuden Seura, Kansan Runous Arksito (SKS). Man, born 1913, vol. 51, p. 26. 24 “Luokkaviha”, Kansan Työ, 86 (15 April 1929). 25 Approximately 8,342 people perished in the White Terror. Some 1,625 persons died in the Red Terror. Eerola and Eerola, Henkilötappiot Suomen sisällissodassa 1918, pp. 59, 91. 26 Adam Hochschild, The Unquiet Ghost: Russians Remember Stalin (London: Serpent’s Tail, 1995), p. 21. 27 Catherine Merridale, “War, Death, and Remembrance in Stalin’s Russia”, in Winter and Sivan, eds, War and Remembrance in the Twentieth Century, p. 64. 28 I am grateful to David Kirby for his comments on this point. 29 SKS. Woman, born 1901, vol. 12, pp. 303–4. 30 SKS. Man, born 1910, vol. 3, p. 81. 31 Väinö Linna. Täällä pohjan tähden alla (Porvoo: WSOY, 1959–1962). Linna writes of a Red family whose lives got caught in the storm of 1918. 32 Jaakko Paavolainen. Poliittiset väkivaltaisuudet Suomessa 1918 I: Punainen Terrori (Helsinki: Tammi, 1966); Poliittiset väkivaltaisuudet Suomessa 1918 II: Valkoinen Terrori (Helsinki: Tammi, 1967). 33 Eerola and Eerola, Henkilötappiot Suomen sisällissodassa, 1918, p. 159. 34 Ignatieff, “Soviet War Memorials”, p. 158. 35 SS, kirje arkisto (woman, name withheld). 36 Suomen Sotasurmat 1914–22, (SS) kirje arkisto (woman, name withheld). 37 Winter and Sivan, War and Remembrance in the Twentieth Century, ch. 1. 38 See Mandy Hoogendoorn, “Remembering the Finnish Civil War”, Journal of Finnish Studies (April 1999).

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INDEX

ABRI, 40 Academic Karelia Society see Akateeminen Karjala-Seura Affandi, 39 Africa, 3, 5 Agrarian Union (Finland), 173, 176 Aho, Juhani, 200 Aidit, D.N., 69 airforce, Indonesian, 40, 67 Akateeminen Karjala-Seura (AKS), 174, 175 Akbar Tandjung, 75 n69 Allardt, Erik, 179, 180, 181 Alperavicius, Simonas, 130 Altanbat, M., 34 Amar, 160 Amien Rais, 75 n69 amnesia, historical, 1, 7, 59, 95, 99, 101, 102, 103, 104; China, 22, 24, 139, 150; Finland, 190, 202, 205–7; Indonesia, 38, 41–8, 51–2, 57, 60, 64–5, 72, 80; Inner Mongolia, 33–6; Lithuania, 124; Russia and Baltic states, 79–80, 85, 90, 95, 98, 105 amnesty, 8, 119; Finland, 204 Ansor, 44, 68, 74 n57 anti communism, 72; Baltic states, 120, 121, 122, 131; Indonesia, 57, 66–9, 72; Western, 81 Anti-Rightist Campaign, 28 apology as an issue, 3, 6, 11, 79, 130; Baltic states and Russia, 79, 99–101; China, 18, 22, 147; Mongolia, 165 appeasement, 93 Ara Ken’ichi, 146, 147 Araki Sadao, 146 Ardchilal, 164, 165 Argentina: truth commission, 6 army, Indonesian: and killings, 68 arrests see detentions ASRI, Indonesian Fine Arts Academy, 39, 44 Assmann, Aleida, 63–5 Association of Returnees from China, 148 Atrocity, Nanjing see Nanjing Massacre Australia; war crimes legislation, 2 Azuma Shirô, 147, 150

Bali, 41; 1965–66 killings in, 41, 43, 68 Baltic American Freedom League, 125 Baltic Entente, 83 Baltic states, 8, 9; invaded and annexed by Soviet Union 1939–40, 79, 80, 82, 89, 92, 94, 100, 101; relations with Russia, 99, 102; see also Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania Bao Erhan, 25 Barghoorn, Frederick C., 98 Baskoro Budhi Darmawan, 50 Batu, 26, 27 Beauvoir, Simone de, 139 Beijing, 17, 18, 24–6, 28, 33, 39, 146 Belorussia (Belarus), Western, 89; annexed by Soviet Union 1939, 83; war crimes in, 2 Benjamin, Walter, 185 Bessarabia, 94; and Nazi-Soviet Pact 1939, 81 Bian Chongyun, 17, 18 bilig, 159 blame and condemnation, 5, 11, 19, 20, 21, 87–8, 91, 93–4, 96, 105, 126, 128, 131, 142, 157–8, 162–3, 187, 200; see also victim status Blitar, 53 n13 Bodoo, 157 Bolivia: truth commission, 6 books, 14, 19, 105, 150, 156, 159, 177, 204; destruction of, 18, 72 n1; production in Mongolia n17, 168; see also history textbooks border disputes; Baltic-Russian, 101; Poland and Lithuania, 103 Bosnia, 2 Botschkarev, G.N., 121 Boyin-jabu, 26–7 Boyolali, 43 Brazauskas, Algirdas, 129 BTI (Barisan Tani Indonesia, Indonesian Peasants’ Front), 38, 53 n10 Buddhism, 156, 159, 166 Bukan Sekadar Kenangan (film), 57, 66, 72 Buriad Mongols, 156 burial places see graves and burial places Buru, 39

Baabar, 160, 161, 166 Balhaajav, Ts., 163

Cakrabirawa presidential guard, 67 Cambodia, 8

210

INDEX camps, 81, 83, 96, 120, 121, 124, 125, 169, 177, 188, 191, 192, 200, 202, 204, 205, 208; see also detention cannibalism, 20 Carr, E.H., 47 Caruth, Cathy, 63 Catholicism, 177 Caucasus, 104 Cavalli, Alessandro, 63 censorship; Indonesia, 49 Central Investigation Groups for Special Cases (China), 17 Central Java, 39 Centre for History and Tradition of the Armed Forces (Indonesia), 70 ceremonies see commemorations Chad: truth commission, 6 Charles I of England, 5 Chechnya and Chechens, 34, 102, 104; compared with Inner Mongolia, 35 Chen Degui, 149 Chiang Kai-shek, 140, 142 Chile, 50; truth commission, 6 China, 3, 8, 9, 10, 11, 13; and Japan, 6, 10; and Mongolia, 9; and Vietnam, 1; and Japan, 146, 148 Chinese Communist Party, 15, 16, 20, 24–30, 33–6; Central Committee, 24–6, 30–3, 121, 157, 158, 163 Chinggis Khaan, 5, 35, 157, 158, 159 Choibalsan, H., 11, 158, 160–3 citizenship as issue: Baltic states, 101, 128, 134 n44 Civil Guard (Finland), 171, 173, 185 class: in Finland, 169 Clinton, Bill, 6 Cold War, 2, 98 collaboration as issue: in Baltic states, 102 collective guilt, 130, 132 collective memory, 7, 58, 61, 139–40, 142–5, 149, 151, 152, 177 collectivization, 89, 121; Baltic states, 83; Mongolia, 155, 161, 168 n33; see also Land colonialism, 3 Commager, Henry Steele, 84 commemorations, 118, 131–2, 201; Finland, 181, 182, 189, 195, 202, 203 commissions of investigation; Baltic states, 100, 103, 131 Communism and communists: Finland, 172–81, 192; banned in Indonesia, 66 Communist Party, Indonesian see Partai Komunis Indonesia Compatriot Victims in the Nanjing Massacre by the Japanese Invading Troops, 143 compensation, 10, 11, 207; Mongolia, 165 condemnation see blame and condemnation Connerton, Paul, 7 Cornell University, 74 n43 corpses, 46; generals’, 68 Council of Europe, 100, 129 Council of Generals (Indonesia), 67, 68

Cribb, Robert, 41, 67, 68 Cromwell, Oliver, 5 Crouch, Harold, 67 cruelty: Finland, 186, 192; see also torture Cultural Revolution, 8, 13–35, 142–4, 149 Dai Qing, 28 Dalai Lama, 25 Dam Banner, 33 Danilov, A.A., 86, 88–9, 91–2, 96 Danzan, 157 Dashpurev, D., 166 decolonization, 3 Dekanozov, Vladimir, 83 dekulakization, 89; in Baltic states, 83 democratization, 3, 4, 119, 132, 172–3, 179, 182 n14; see also elections Deng Xiaoping, 24, 25, 31–3, 143 Denmark: invaded by Germany 1940, 82 deportation: Baltic states, 83, 88–90, 100–3, 118–19, 121–2; Caucasus, 104; Estonia, 129; Gypsies, 120; Lithuania, 96, 121, 126; Mongolia to Soviet Union, 167 n1; return to Baltic states, 123; Russians, 96; Ukrainians, Belorussians, Poles, 96, 108 n23 Depression, Great, 173 detention, 39, 41, 42, 44, 45, 83, 50, 69, 83, 88, 96, 123–5, 129–31, 145, 151, 160, 169, 176, 188, 200, 201, 204, 208; see also camps; Finland, 177, 201, 203; Indonesia, 43, 44, 51, 52, 69; Mongolia, 167 n1 Dewi Sari, Ratna, 73 Dhani, Omar, 69 diaries, 119; Finland, 185 disappearances, 4, 41, 44, 48, 51, 167 n3 Dittmer, Lowell, 13 Dmitrenko, V.P., 86, 88, 91–3, 95 Domei, 147 Duma, 79 Durkheim, Emile, 58 East Prussia, 132 Eichmann, Adolf, 2 Einsatzgruppe, 122 El Salvador: truth commission, 6 elections, 3, 83, 85–8, 164, 171, 175, 202; Baltic states, 83; Finland, 170, 173, 175, 179–80; Poland, 83; Indonesia, 1955, n13, 53; Mongolia, 164 Elunchun, 31 Estonia, 83, 86, 87, 99–102, 105, 118–22, 125–9, 131, 133, 134, 170; and Nazi-Soviet Pact 1939, 81; citizenship, 101, 134 n44; deportations, 84; emigration to West, 121; German residents, 120; partisan resistance, 84; relations with Russia, 79, 100, 102; Russian minority, 79; Soviet annexation, 79, 87, 88 Ethiopia; truth commission, 6; evidence, problems of, 10, 130, 141, 145, 151–2 fascism; Finland, 173, 174; southern Europe, 177 Feng Jingde, 143

211

INDEX Feuchtwang, Stephen, 119 film, 84; Finland, 183 n25, 201, 204; Indonesia, 57, 66, 72 Finland, 8, 9, 10, 92, 169–209; and Nazi-Soviet Pact 1939, 81; Civil War, 7, 8, 10, 17, 44, 142, 161, 169–208; independence 1918, 169, 171, 172; liberalism, 176; Soviet attack 1940, 82, 107 n17 ‘Finlandization’, 176, 180–1 Finnish Literature Society, 193, 194 Finnish War Victims’ Project, 1914–22, 181, 195, 198 Finnish-Soviet Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual Assistance in 1948, 175 First World War, 5, 92 ‘Five-anti’, 15 forced labour, 121, 141 ‘forest brothers’ see partisans forgetting see amnesia, historical Foucault, Michel, 46, 157 ‘Four-cleansing’, 15 France, 5, 177, 180, 181; invaded by Germany 1940, 82 Freud, Sigmund, 58, 61, 62, 63 Friedrich Karl, Prince of Hesse, 202 G30S see GESTAPU Gang of Four, 31, 32 Gao Jinming, 28, 31–3, 36 Gao Yuan, 14 Genden, P., 166 Geneva Convention of 1949, 128 Genghis Khan see Chinggis Khaan Gerakan Tigapuluh September see GESTAPU Gerakan Wanita Indonesia see GERWANI Germans: expulsion from Baltic states, 120, 122; expulsion from East Prussia, 132; troops in Finland, 1917–18, 169, 200 Germany, 1–3, 5, 180; relations with Soviet Union, 81, 90; truth commission, 6 GERWANI, 38, 39, 53 n10 Gestapu (term), 52 n6, 72 n1 GESTAPU, 39–41, 44, 57 GESTOK, 72 n1 Gillis, John, 201 Gonggele, 18, 19 Gorbachev, Mikhael, 79 graves and burial places, 126; Finland, 184, 186–90, 195; Java, 46, 58; Jewish, 127 Great Leap Forward, 21 Grinkeviciute, Dalia, 123–5, 134 n24 Guatemala; truth commission, 6 Gudelis, Antanas, 127 guerrillas and guerrilla war see partisans guilt see blame and condemnation Guo Yiqing, 32 Gypsies, 122; Baltic, 132; deported, 120, 121 Haavikko, Paavo, 183 n19 Habibie, B.J., 75, n69 Halbwachs, Maurice, 58, 61, 139, 151 Halim Perdanakusumah airforce base, 51

Hämeenlinna, 190, 203 Hamilton, Paula, 47 Han Chinese chauvinism, 25, 34 Hata Kensuke, 147 He Long, 17 Hebei, 25 Helsinki, 185, 190, 199, 200 Helsinki ’86 movement, 126 heroes and heroism, 65, 69, 71, 72, 74 n57, 96–8, 179; Finland, 186, 202–3; Indonesia, 69; Mongolia, 168 n24, n34 HIS, 53 n10 history textbooks: Soviet, 80, 84–8, 92, 94, 97, 99, 105; and Nanjing Massacre, 143 Hitler, Adolf, 16, 93 Hochschild, Adam, 205 Hohhot, 34 Holocaust, 2, 127; trauma in, 62 Honda Katsuichi, 146, 149, 151 Huang Shaorong, 14 human rights of losers see losers, human rights of humiliation: China, 147; Indonesia, 48, 70 Hundred Flowers Movement, 29 Hungary, 170; White Terror, 169 Hüree, 161 Hynes, Samuel, 199 Igarka, 119, 131 Ignatieff, Michael, 207 Ih Hural, 164, 167 n4 Imai Masatake, 147 immigration: Baltic states, 118 imprisonment see detention Indonesia, 8, 10, 11 Indonesian Art Institute (ISI), 49 Indonesian Democratic Party (PDI), 50 Ingush, 104 injustice, 5, 6 Inner Mongolia, 24–35; Chinese migration into, 25 Inner Mongolian People’s Party, 27, 28, 30–5; congress, 1997, 35 Inner Mongolian People’s Revolutionary Party, 25–35 International Criminal Court, 6 Ireland, 180 Irkutsk, 161 Islam and killings: Indonesia, 54 n21, 68 Ismail Saleh, 66 Israel, 129, 130; kidnapping of Eichmann, 2 Itä ja Länsi, 189 Italy, 177, 180, 181 Jakarta, 40, 50; 1996 riots, 50 Jakubenas, Kazys, 125 Japan, 2, 3, 116 n111; and China, 10, 146; and Mongolia, 26; and Nanjing, 144; military strategy in northern China, 148; occupation of China, 16; occupation of Indonesia, 52 n1; rivalry with Soviet Union, 93; use of slave-prostitutes in Indonesia, 48 Java, 39; 1965–66 killings, 41; PKI support in, 39 Javanese philosophy, 42

212

INDEX Jews, 63, 122; compared with Chinese, 16; expelled from Baltic states, 120, 121, 133 n12; in Lithuania, 104, 120, 129–31, 133 n9; in Russia, 104; killed, persecutied in Baltic states, 102, 103, 112 n80, 121–2, 127, 130, 133 n12; in Estonia, 133 n9 Ji’nan, 32 Jiang Fugeng, 149 Jiang Qing, 21, 22, 32 Jirumutu, 34 Job, Book of, 16 Jokubynas, Kestutis, 123 Joyokusumo, Gusti, 50 jugun ianfu, 48, 49, 51 Kaikôsha, 146, 147 Kalevala, 189 Kalevankangas, 188 Kaliningrad, 132 Kalytis, Ricardas, 126 Kang Sheng, 31, 32 Kartini, R.A., 49 Katyn massacre, 110 n48 Kediri, 43 Kekkonen, Urho, 176 Kerulis, Leonas, 125 KGB, 122, 125, 129; in Mongolia, 162 KGB, Mongolian, 156 Kianto, Ilmari, 203 Kibelka, Ruth, 132 killings: Baltic States, 8, 83–4, 90, 100, 102, 118, 125, 129, 130; China, 8, 9, 15, 141–9, 151; Finland, 8, 169, 181–2, 184–90, 192, 204; Indonesia, 8, 9, 41–4, 46, 48–50, 51, 58, 66–9, 72; Inner Mongolia, 31, 33–4; Jews, 50, 122, 127, 130–1; Mongolia, 8, 155–6, 158, 160, 162, 166; Russia, 97 Klaassepp, Johannes, 129 Klaten, 38, 43–4, 46, 47, 53 n20 KMT, 29 Kôbunsha, 148 Kok, Ingrid de, 157 Komando Operasi Pemulihan Keamanan dan Ketertiban (KOPKAMTIB), 41 KOMNAS/HAM, 53 n14 Königsberg, 132 Kononov, Vasily, 129 Korea: and Japan, 6 Kosovo, 8 KOSTRAD, 40, 68 Kosulina, L.G., 86, 88, 89, 91, 92, 96 Kouvola, 187 Kreder, A.A., 99 Kubilius, Vytautas, 124 Kupang, 53, n11 Kuusankoski, 188 Kuusinen, Otto Wuille, 179 Kymi, 186 Laar, Mart, 126, 127 Labour Archives (Finland), 193 Lahti, 186

lamas, 158, 159, 166 land issues, 11, 180; Baltic states, 174; Estonia, 121; Finland, 176; Indonesia, 68; Mongolia, 161 Landsbergis, Vytautas, 100, 129 Langer, Lawrence L., 48, 150 language, 43 Lapua movement, 173, 174, 175 Latief, Abdul, 67, 68, 69 Latvia, 83, 86, 87, 103, 104, 118–23, 125, 127, 128, 129, 131, 132, 134; and Nazi-Soviet Pact 1939, 81; annexation by Soviet Union, 87, 88; citizenship, 101, 134 n44; deportations, 83, 84; emigration to West, 121 Leclerc, Jacques, 71 Left Union, 181 Lehtikangas, 188 LEKRA, 38, 39, 52 n10 Lhümbe, 166 Li Shude, 31–3, 36 Li Zhisui, 22 Liang Heng, 14 liberalism: in Finland, 176 Lieux de mémoire, 59, 60, 61 Lieven, Anatol, 100 Lileikis, Aleksandras, 130 Lin Biao, 21, 22, 24, 32 Lin Jing, 14 Lindholm, Hannu, 190 Linna, Väinö, 177, 192, 206 Lithuania, 10, 83, 86, 87, 103, 104, 118–34; and Nazi-Soviet treaty, 1939, 81, 106 n5; annexation, 87, 88; civil rights of former deportees, 123; deportations, 84, 100, 119, 120; emigration to West, 121; German residents, 120; independence movement, 103; Russians in, 134 n43 Litvaks, 127 Liu Geping, 25 Liu Shaoqi, 13, 17, 25 Loewenberg, Peter, 62 Lönnrot, Elias, 189 losers, human rights of, 72; Baltic states, 122–3; Finland, 173, 176, 189, 192, 200–6; Mongolia, 158, 167 n10 Lu Su, 142 Lubang Buaya, 51, 57, 61, 68–71 Lutheran Church, 186–7, 189, 203 Lyotard, Jean François, 64, 71 Ma Bo, 14, 18, 19 MacArthur, Douglas, 3 Madiun rebellion, 76 n75 Magsarjay, Hatanbaatar, 168 n34 Mahmillub, 69 MAHN see Mongolian People’s Revolutionary Party Majapahit, 38 Malang, 53 n13 Malawi: truth commission, 6 Malmi, 203 Mannerheim, Gen. Gustav, 185 Mao Zedong, 13–19, 21, 22, 25–9 Mardiyem, Nyi, 48, 49, 50, 51

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INDEX Marianto, M. Dwi, 49 Marsinah, 49 Marx, Karl, 7 Mashonkin case, 129 Matsui Iwane, Gen., 142, 146, 147 Matsumoto Shigeharu, 147 McFarqhuar, Roderick, 13 Megawati Sukarnoputri, 49, 50, 75 n69 Mei Ruao, 143 memoirs, 14, 119, 123, 125, 126, 132; Finland, 189, 193–4 memory, 47, 62, 63, 119, 150, 151, 201; Finland, 185; Freudian theory, 58; Nora on, 59, 60, 61; as issue in Baltic states, 118; collective see collective memory Meri, Lennart, 100, 128, 131 Meri, Veijo, 183 n19 Middle East, 5 missing persons, 4 modernity, 45 Moerdiono, 66 Moldavia, 89 Molotov, V., 81, 94, 95, 100, 101, 106 n5 monasteries, 158 Mongolia, 8, 9, 10, 11, 26, 155, 158, 159, 160, 162, 164, 165; and China, 9 Mongolia, Inner, 18, 24 Mongolian People’s Revolutionary Party (MAHN), 11, 157–9, 163, 164, 165, 167 n4; political fortunes after 1996, 167 n4 Mongolian Social Democratic Party, 163 Mongols, 24–8, 33–4, 36, 156, 160; persecuted in Inner Mongolia, 31, 34 monuments, 64, 208; Finland, 189, 192, 195, 200, 203, 206; Indonesia, 61, 68–71 mourning: Baltic states, 100; Finland, 185, 190, 192 murder, non-political: compared with political murder (Indonesia), 49 museums, 60; Baltic states, 84, 119, 127, 131; China, 142–4; Finland, 195; Indonesia, 70–1; Mongolia, 155, 162; Soviet Union, 84, 109 n32 Mustakallio, 186 Myth of 1939–40, 79–80, 86, 88, 90, 98–9, 102, 104, 105 Nahdatul Ulama (NU), 44 Nanjing Massacre, 8, 9, 10, 139–152 Napoleon Bonaparte: invasion of Russia, 1 Nasution, A.H., 74 n50 National Coalition Party (Finland), 181 National Cultural Institute (Lembaga Kebudayaan Nasional, LKN), 50 National Museum of Finland, 195 National War Memorial Society (Finland), 190 NATO, 102 Nazi: persecution of Jews, 50 Nazi-Soviet Pact, 80–2, 90–5, 100, 101, 103, 106 n5, 107 n15, 111 n61; secret protocols, 81–2, 90–5, 100, 103, 112 n62 New Order (Indonesia), 40, 41, 46, 58, 69, 71 newspapers: Inner Mongolia, 30 Nien Cheng, 14

Nietzsche, Friedrich, 48 Niijima Atsuyoshi, 149 Niu Niu, 14 Nixon, Richard: visit to Beijing, 146 Njoto, 69 NKVD: and deportations, 121; and Jews, 121, 130 Noer, Arifin C., 66 Nora, Pierre, 58–61, 70 Norway: invaded by Germany 1940, 82 Noviks, Alfons, 129 Nugroho Notosusanto, 66, 74 n43 numbers of victims, 120; Baltic states, 83–4, 108 n24, 118, 120, 121, 122, 125; Finland, 169, 181–2, 184, 195, 199–200, 202, 204; Java, 41; Mongolia, 156, 159, 160, 167 n3; Nanjing, 143, 145–6, 148–9, 151; Soviet Union, 111 n48 Nuremberg war crimes trials, 2, 11 ‘Nuremberg-2’, 131 Oei Tjoe Tat, 68, 74 n54 Open Society Institute, 105 oral history, 5, 42–5, 47–8, 185 Ostrovskii, V.P., 86, 88, 90, 93, 96 Otral, 5 Ôya Sôichi, 149 Paavolainen, Jaakko, 206 Pajaujis-Javis, Joseph, 125 Pakistan, 3 Palestine: compared with Indonesia, 50 Pancasila, 57, 70, 71, 75 n61, 75 n69 Panchen Lama, 25 Parkano, 188 Partai Komunis Indonesia (PKI) 38–40, 42, 44–6, 52 n10, 57, 66–9, 72, 75 n58; and 1965 coup, 68; banned, 1966, 69 partisans, 3, 148; Baltic states, 84, 89, 90, 122 Pasuruan, 43 peasantry: Finnish, 174 Pekalongan 75n 63, Pelinka, Anton, 65 Pemuda Rakyat, 53 n10 n20 Peng Dehuai, 17 Pengkhianatan G30S (film), 57, 66 People’s Liberation Army, 24, 26, 29 People’s Patriotic Movement (Finland), 175 Petrus affair, 1983–85, 51 Petschory, 121 Philippines: truth commission, 6 Pilate, Pontius, 188 PKI see Partai Komunis Indonesia Poland, 92, 94, 96, 103; and Nazi-Soviet Pact 1939, 81, 106 n5; annexation, 93; political repression under Soviet rule, 83 police: Finland, 170 populism, 4 Portugal, 8, 177 prison, prisoners see detentions Proust, Marcel, 61 purges, 11, 14, 155–8, 160–6; Mongolia, 163 Quan Xingyuan, 31–3, 36

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INDEX racial tensions: Inner Mongolia, 36 Rae Yang, 14 Rainiai, 130 Rapallo policy, 81 rape, 10, 47, 49, 50, 51, 141–2, 144, 147, 149 rasa, 42 Raslanas, Petras, 130 Rastauskiene, Rasa, 131 Ratnawulan, Dewi, 49, 55 n55 Red Army, 95–7; and deportations, 121 Red Guard (Finland) ), 171, 177, 190, 203 Red Guards (China), 14, 16–19, 22, 24 rehabilitation: Mongolia, 157, 158 Renan, Ernest, 7 reparations, 2 Resimen Para Komando Angkatan Darat (RPKAD), 40 ressentiment, 177, 205 revenge, 1, 6; Finland, 184, 193–4, 206; Indonesia, 43; Inner Mongolia, 33, 34 Ribbentrop, J. von, 81, 100, 101, 106 n5 rituals of death; Finland, 186, 187 Roth, Michael S., 64 Roti, Japanese occupation, 53 n11 RPKAD see Resimen Para Komando Angkatan Darat Rudas, Stephan, 65 Russia, 35; and Baltic states, 9, 10, 101, 105; compared with China, 16; relations with Estonia 1998, 79; and Poland, Finland, Ukraine, Belarus, and Moldova, 104 Russians: and Baltic states, 104; and Finland, 173, 176; settlers in Baltic states, 11, 123, 128; in Finnish Civil War, 200 Rutskaskas, J., 133 n9 Rwanda, 2, 6, 8; truth commission, 6 Saarela, Olli, 201 Sadunaite, Nijole, 123 Sahlstén, Anna Sofia, 185 Sanggar Garasi Group, 50 Sardjono, Agnes Yani, 51 Sasaki Tôichi, 145 Sato Shunjû, 147 scapegoating, 21, 72, 88; Indonesia, 72; Mongolia, 162, 163 Schwarz, Vera, 143 Second World War, 2, 3, 6; and Russia/Soviet Union, 80–1, 88–90, 95–6, 98–9, 104 Sedyawati, Edy, 66 Select Committee to Investigate the Incorporation of the Baltic states into the USSR in 1953, 125 Semarang, 53 n13 sexual abuse, 51, 52; Finland, 186 Shakespeare, W., 15 Shanxi, 25 Shimada Katsumi, 145 Siberia; as place of exile, 83, 111 n49, 123, 125–6, 129–30; Buriads flee from, 156 Sillanpää, Frans, 201, 202 sing wis, ya wis, 43 Siregar, Ashadi, 49

sites of memory, 70 Situmorang, Sitor, 50, 51 Sjam, 69 Skultans, Vieda, 118, 124, 125 Snow, Edgar, 139 SOBSI, 38, 53 n10 Social Democrats (Finland) , 169–78, 181, 193, 205 social memory, 185 socialism: Mongolia, 159, 162, 163, 166 Socialist Educational Movement, 15 Solo, 43 Sone Kazuo, 147 Soni, S.K., 166 Soroko-Tsiupa, O.S., 91 Soros, George, 105 South Africa, 8; Truth and Reconciliation Commission, 6, 157 Soviet Union, 26, 40, 79, 80–3, 85, 86–9, 91–8, 100, 101–3, 105, 118–21, 125, 161–3, 172, 174, 175, 177, 178, 180, 181, 192, 195; and Inner Mongolia, 26; and Mongolia, 11, 26, 159–62; annexation of Baltic states, 87; relations with Finland, 178; relations with Germany, 81; rivalry with Japan, 93 Sovietization, 89, 101; Baltic states, 89 Spain, 8, 177 Spegel, Hagvin, 189 Stalin, Josef, 1, 9, 16, 21, 81–3, 88, 91, 93–4, 97, 123, 129, 160–3 Stange, Paul, 42 Steponavicius, Zigmas, 125 stigmatisation see losers, human rights of Stoler, Anne Laura, 44, 52 Strassler, Karen, 44, 52 Strelis, Uldis, 129 student movement: Finland, 178, 179 Subandrio, 69 suffrage: Finland, 170 Sugandhi, Brig.Gen, 52 n6 Suharto, 8, 9, 40, 45, 50, 54 n26, 57, 72, 75 n58; and ceremonies, 71; in film, 57; resignation, 1998, 40, 45, 51; seizes power 1966, 46, 58, 69; 1965 coup, 68, 74 n52 Sühbaatar, 161 Sukarno, 8, 40, 42, 43, 75 n57, n58; and 1965 coup, 69; dies, n5, 73; fall from power, 46, 58, 67, 69; health, 67 Sumatra, 68 Sundhaussen, Ulf, 67 Supersemar, 46, 54 n26, 75 n58, 69 Surakarta, 43, 53 n13 Suzuki Akira, 146 Svinhufvud, Per, 201 Sweden, 170 Tömör-Ochir, 158 Taagepera, Rein, 83 taboo, 65 Tajikistan, 126 Tammisaari, 190, 195, 208 Tampere, 182, 188

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INDEX Tanaka Kakuei, 146 Tanaka Saburo, 151 Tani Hisao, 142, 145 Tanner, Väinö, 205 Tartu Peace Treaty 1920, 101, 102 television, 132, 185; China, 15, 147; Indonesia, 66 Teng Haiqing, 26–8, 30–3, 36 terlibat, 39, 44 terror, 16, 90, 200; Finland, 169, 182, 200, 203, 205, 206; Hungary, 169 textbooks see history textnooks ‘Three-anti’, 15 Thurston, Anne, 16, 21, 22 Tiananmen massacre, 9, 14 Tillet, Lowell, 98 time, loss of, 125 Toivola, Harald, 203 Toivola, Juha, 201 Tokyo war crimes trials, 2, 11, 142–3, 145, 148 Tömör-Ochir, 158, 167 n12 torture, 17, 30, 141; Baltic states, 100; China, 17, 18, 20; Indonesia, 57, 66, 68, 70; Inner Mongolia, 29–31 Touketou, 29 trauma, 62–5 Tremtis [displacement] literature, 123–5 trials, 8, 129; Estonia, 128 Trouillot, Michel-Rolph, 46 Trubus, 44 truth, 6, 7, 8, 10, 30, 64, 98, 99, 100, 104, 105, 126, 130, 131, 157–60, 166, 184, 191, 192, 194, 195, 198, 199, 202, 206, 207 truth commissions (and similar institutuons), 6–8, 10, 131–2; Baltic states, 100, 103, 104, 115 n95, 129, 130–2; Indonesia, 68; Mongolia, 157; South Africa, 6, 157 Tsedenbal, 11 Tsemtsel, 35 Tumarkin, Nina, 98 Tumete Left Banner, 30 Uganda: truth commission, 6 Ukraine, Western, 89; annexed by Soviet Union, 1939, 83 Ulaanbaatar, 155, 161 Ulaanho see Ulanfu Ulaghanköö see Ulanfu Ulan Qab, 31 Ulanfu, 25, 26, 28 Unemoto Masami, 146 Union of the Victims of Political Purges, 164 United Kingdom: war crimes legislation, 2 United States, 5, 130; and Vietnam War, 3 Untung, 58, 67, 69

‘uprooting and eliminating’, 26, 29, 30, 33, 35, 36 Uruguay: truth commission, 6 Utkin, A.I., 86, 88, 90, 93, 96 Versailles, Treaty of, 2 victim status, 14–16, 19, 20, 22, 72, 88, 102, 103; Baltic states, 119; Finland, 200; Lithuania, 131; Mongolia, 165, 166; Soviet Union, 88, 95; Russians, 80, 95–7; see also blame and condemnation Victory Day Celebration: Finland, 205 Vietnam; and China, 1 Vietnam War, 3, 50, 146 Vilnius, 103, 112 n65, 113 n80, 127 Volga Germans, 104 Vorkuta, 119, 131 Vyshinskii, A.Y., 83 Wahid, Abdurrachman, n69, 75 Wang Jing, 20, 21 Wang Ruoshui, 20 Wang Shaoguang, 14 war crimes and war criminals, 2 Wasserstrom, Jeffrey M., 14 ‘White Tiger’ Unit, 147 Winter War of 1939–40, 199, 206 Wolfskinder, 132 women: Finland, 185, 186, 188, 190 Wonosobo, 41 Wu Changde, 142, 143, 152 Wu Tao, 31–3, 36 Xiaguan region, 146 Xu Zhigeng, 144 Yakutiya, 124 Yani, Gen. Ahmad, 67, 69, 74 n50 Yeltsin, Boris, 79, 100 Ylikangas, Heikki, 182 Yogyakarta, 38–51 Yokoi Shôichi, 146 Yugoslavia, 6 zarlig, 159 Zha Xi, 25 Zhai Zhenhua, 14, 19, 21 Zhang Rong, 14 Zhdanov, A.A., 83, 121 Zhou Enlai, 22, 31 Zhou Yang, 20 Zhukov, Gen. G.K., 99 Zimbabwe: truth commission, 6 Zingeris, Markas, 130 Zorig, 167 n2

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